With a new coronavirus ravaging the world since spring, the year 2020 was tough. Yet even during these troubled times, some moments of joy came through – and some were fueled by awesome scientific discoveries and phenomena. From the incredible efforts of scientists to develop a COVID-19 vaccine in record time to seal slapping and swimming dinosaurs, here are 10 ways science has made a suction year less suck.
Covid-19 Vaccines
This year, scientists around the world have made an enormous and unprecedented effort to develop vaccines to combat the new coronavirus; and they did so on unprecedented timescales. Less than a year after the mysterious cluster of pneumonia-like diseases in Wuhan, China was identified, scientists developed 223 coronavirus candidate vaccines to fight the virus that caused it; 57 of these vaccines are already being tested on humans, According to the WHO. Two of the vaccines are already in use in the US; they use a relatively new technology based on a synthetic strand of genetic code called messenger RNA that prepares the immune system to fight the new coronavirus. The COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are 95% and 94.1% effective, respectively. In addition, experts say this technology could be a game changer for vaccine development in the future.
[Read more about the incredible accomplishments and mRNA vaccines]
Return of blue whales
Nearly 100 years after the critically endangered blue whales nearly became extinct as a result of industrial whaling, they have returned to the waters of South Georgia Island near Antarctica. Only one blue whale had been sighted in this area between 1998 and 2018, which was once an industrial whaling center until the practice was banned in the 1960s; Between 1904 and 1971, about 42,000 blue whales were killed in South Georgia. But a recent survey came with very hopeful news: Scientists aboard a research vessel in January and February 2020 counted dozens of blue whales that had returned to the area. In total, they discovered 58 individual blue whales, according to a study published Nov. 19 in the journal Research on endangered species. “We’ve had evidence in previous years that more blue whales may be starting to make their way back to South Georgia,” marine mammal ecologist Susannah Calderan told Live Science. “But we were very positively surprised by how many we have seen this year.”
[Read more about the return of this endangered creature]
Possible life on Venus
Scientists have discovered a mysterious, inexplicable chemical in Venus’ upper atmosphere and suggested it could be a sign of life. The chemical, a phosphine gas (PH3), is made on our planet by bacteria and by “anthropogenic activity,” or activities that humans do. Phosphine is also found in the atmosphere of gas giant planets due to known chemical processes. But no such chemical process is known on Venus. Don’t look for ET on Venus just yet, however, as phosphine could have been created by a chemical process unknown to us, the researchers wrote Sept. 14 in the journal. Nature astronomy.
[Read more about life on Venus]
Seals clap
For the first time, a seal was recorded clapping (or banging his flippers) in the wild, not prompted by zookeeper training or treats, according to a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science in January. This particularly amusing creature was the male gray seal that swam (and clapped) off the Farne Islands in north-east England. Only male seals appear to clap, and they usually do when other seals are around; this clapping seal swam with a female and a male. So biologists suspect the gray seals are either clapping to get buddies or to scare away competitors.
[Read more about this clapping seal]
Swimming dinosaurs
Dinosaurs were not thought to be swimming. That is, until this year when researchers in southeastern Morocco discovered a paddle-like tail that belonged to a predatory dinosaur with sharp teeth called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This new tail, which was long and flat like a fin, is reminiscent of that in modern crocodiles, the researchers reported in April in the journal. Nature. Still, researchers say that because the fossils were found inland, this dinosaur was probably more comfortable on land and just swam in shallow water, without straying too far.
[Read more about these water dinos]
“Smelly flirtatious” male lemurs
Male lemurs produce a fruity scent in their wrist glands, rub it on their tails, and float a cloud of scent towards a potential mate. Male lemurs often use such secretions to communicate with other males to mark their territory, indicate social status, or announce that they are ready to breed. But scientists have recently discovered that they also use these chemicals to “flirt” with women to “stink”. Typically, secretions from the wrist glands smell “ bitter, ” “ leathery, ” and “ green, ” but during the breeding season, they smell “ more fruity, floral, and sweet, ” the authors wrote in an article published in the journal in April. Current Biology. This could be the first evidence of sex pheromones in primates.
[Read more about stink flirting]
Great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn
On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn appeared so close together in the night sky that they looked like one star. This rare phenomenon, called the “Great conjunction”, occurs every 20 years, but the two gas giants have not been so close to each other since July 16, 1623, when the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei was still alive. The last night sky where Saturn and Jupiter appeared so close together was in 1223.
[Read more about this rare phenomenon]
Parrot who is a champion in memory games
A gray parrot named Griffin outwits 21 Harvard students in a classic memory game, according to a study published in May in the journal Scientific reports. African Gray Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) can live for more than 50 years and has always been known for being impressive; after all, they can memorize dozens of words. But now Griffin has shown that impressive is an understatement. Researchers gave Griffin and the Harvard students a memory task that involved finding a colorful pompom under a plastic cup after it had been shaken around the table several times. Griffin fared as well or better than the students in 12 of the 14 studies. To locate the pompom, both Griffin and the students used a function of their work memories called “manipulation,” which is based on Griffin’s amazing achievement and, according to the researchers, may be an evolutionary ancient ability.
[Read more about Griffin]
Ancient female hunters
A recently discovered 9,000-year-old hunter burial, and other analyzes of hunter burials, suggested that early hunter-gatherer women in ancient America hunted big game just as much as men. These findings suggest that the accepted story of ancient men hunting big game while women gathering herbs and plants is not always true. “These findings underscore the idea that the gender roles that we take for granted in society today – or that many take for granted – may not be as natural as some may have thought,” said lead author Randy Haas, an assistant professor of anthropology. at the University of California, Davis, told Live Science. The team identified 429 skeletons from various ancient burial sites in the Americas; 27 of the skeletons were buried with big game hunting tools. Among those buried with big game hunting tools, 11 were females (including the newly discovered female) and 15 males, according to a study published Nov. 4 in the journal Science Advances. Further statistical analysis suggested that between 30% and 50% of the hunters in these populations were female. “What we see is that female and male funerals are equally associated with big game hunting equipment,” said Haas.
[Read more about these fierce female hunters]
Octopus beats fish
Another strange story from 2020: octopuses sometimes hit fish, because why not? Big blue octopuses (Octopus cyanea) sometimes work with fish to find food. But sometimes when they’re not satisfied with those fish, or don’t want to share the jointly hunted food, they use a “ quick, explosive one-arm motion, ” in other words, they hit the head, according to a new study published at December 18 in the magazine Ecology. “I laughed out loud and almost choked on my own regulator,” lead author Eduardo Sampaio, a Ph.D. student at the University of Lisbon and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Live Science told Live Science in an email. His later responses were more subdued, “but I still marveled at it every time I saw it,” he added. The researchers observed this behavior eight times between 2018 and 2019 while diving in Eilat, Israel, and in El Quseir, Egypt.
[Read more about punching octopuses]
Originally published on Live Science.