Until this year, all man-made objects have been moved according to the laws of classical mechanics. But last March, physicists Andrew Cleland and John Martinis, from the University of California at Santa Barbara (USA), designeda device that “dances” and moves in a way that can only be described by quantum mechanics– the series of rules that governs the behavior of molecules, atoms and subatomic particles -. In recognition of the conceptual terrain in which his experiment is pioneering, the naivety behind it, and its various potential applications, the magazineScience has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010.
In addition, the publication has chosen 9 other scientific advances to be part of its annual “top ten”. In second place is theadvances in synthetic biologystarring Craig Venter and his team as they createthe first bacterium with artificial genome. The list also includes other milestones in genetics, such as theNeanderthal genome sequencingbased on the bones of three individuals who lived in Croatia between 38,000 and 44,000 years ago, advances in sequencing technologies that allow initiating initiatives such as the “1000 Genomes Project”, the sequencing ofexonsof a genome to study the calls“rare diseases”and reprogramming cells using synthetic RNA.
Two newmethods to prevent infection with the AIDS virus, advances in the simulation of theprotein folding, quantum simulators and the“return of the rats” to the laboratory for experimentation, complete the ranking.
A decade of science
Also, to celebrate the end of the decade, reporters and editors fromScience they have selectedten momentous advances for science in the first decade of the millennium. It is the so-called “Dark Genome” (the non-coding part of the genome, more than 98%), the new “recipe” for the composition of the Cosmos, the study of ancient biomolecules (DNA, collagen …) of tens of thousands years old, the discovery of water on Mars, the ability toreprogram cellsand transform them into pluripotents, the microbiome, exoplanets, metamaterials and the first attempts to build invisibility cloaks, advances in the study of inflammation and research on climate change.
