Science-2010: hot ten

Results of the year: the ten biggest scientific breakthroughs
Sergey Bogdanov, CNews

Every year before the Catholic Christmas, Science magazine summarizes the results of the year and names the ten largest scientific achievements, especially noting the "Breakthrough of the Year".

Of course, this symbolic prize is far from the Nobel Prize, but it is highly valued in the scientific world. It rarely happens that a few years later the Nobel Committee picks up the baton of the Science editorial board, but even in cases when the reader raises his right eyebrow in amazement, evaluating the main choice of the journal, later, as a rule, it turns out that the right eyebrow was wrong.

Breakthrough of the year: Quantum has become visibleThis time, Science magazine called the breakthrough of the year the work published in March by physicists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Andrew Cleland and John Martinis, who together with colleagues made a microscopic, but visible to the eye, semiconductor wand vibrate according to the laws of quantum mechanics, not classical.

For quantum mechanics, this is already a macro object, the length of a human hair, and the world's first mechanical device made by humans, which worked according to its rules. Science journalists compare this work with Henry Ford's first car assembled in a garage, which in itself may not have been a very impressive achievement, but gave impetus to the mass motorization of the world.

Researchers have long tried to make a nanometer-thick and micron-long hair work in the mode of a quantum "oscillator" that would vibrate due to the absorption and emission of quanta. The essence of the effect was clear, it was unclear how to implement it. To do this, it was necessary to lower all the atoms of this hair into the so-called ground state, cool it so that the electrons in it occupied the lowest-energy orbits. And to see that he is still moving, because quantum mechanics does not allow him to be in a certain place at a certain speed.

The quantum has become visible. Science journalists promise a huge future for this breakthrough – both in science and in our real everyday life.

GeneticsThe list of the other 9 major scientific achievements of the year is headed by a team of geneticists from the Craig Venter Institute, located in two US states at once – Maryland and California, which this year presented the world with a bacterium with an artificially created genome.

The bacterium they created is practically no different from the existing one, only one gene has been replaced in the genome, as a result of which proteins unusual for it are produced in the body of this bacterium. But this genome is artificial. It is assembled from pieces of genetic sequences, and it is because of him that they started talking about the birth of a new science - synthetic biology.

The next item on the list is the decoding of the Neanderthal genome. It was almost completely deciphered by a large international group of geneticists, which included Svante Paabo, who stunned the world 13 years ago by stating that Cro-Magnons who arrived in Europe from Africa 80 thousand years ago completely displaced the Neanderthals who dominated there, genetically not intersecting with them in any way. Scientists have deciphered two-thirds of the genetic sequences taken from three women who lived in Croatia 38-44 thousand years ago. The very fact that they did it seems like a miracle, since DNA molecules are rapidly destroyed. By studying the compiled genome, scientists were able to prove that our ancestors actually interbred with Neanderthals, although infrequently, but we inherited from them from 1 to 4% of the genes. They also discovered some of the genes that helped our ancestors survive, and the Neanderthals died without them.

Decoding Neanderthal DNA is not the only genetic success this year. Scientists actively used new methods of mass parallel sequencing and, accordingly, devices that allow reading genetic information much cheaper than before, and in terms that were not previously available. Therefore, the magazine devoted the next line of its list to genomics of a new generation. The successful "Thousand Genomes" project is mentioned, during which scientists will try to identify all the so–called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP - single-nucleotide polymorphism), that is, differences in one letter between two compared DNA sequences taken from different people. It is believed that such mutations are characteristic of the genomes of at least 1% of people. This year, 8.5 million SNPs have been identified, in addition to the 6.5 million identified earlier. This information will help scientists trace mutations that lead to various diseases.

Reprogramming cells by inserting a few extra copies of genes into them has long been a routine technique in genetic laboratories. In particular, this technique allows you to change adult cells so that they behave like embryonic stem cells, which are predicted to have a great future in medicine in the next decades. This year, a new cell reprogramming technique was developed, which is faster and more efficient than the standard technique. The basis of the method is the use of synthetic RNA molecules synthesized so that they can avoid an antiviral attack, which is an inevitable immune reaction of the cell to someone else's RNA. Synthetic RNAs reprogram cells into stem cells faster and better; they can also make stem cells turn into the right tissue. Thus, it has been shown that using this method it is possible to turn fibroblast cells (connective tissue) into muscle tissue cells.

The next, sixth, place in the top ten outstanding scientific achievements of the year is also given to genetics, or rather to a new method of genetic analysis – the so-called "exomic" sequencing. There are many rare hereditary diseases caused by a mutation in only one gene, and the search for this gene is very important for subsequent treatment. The ideal search option – full genome sequencing – is not suitable here, because even with the existing technology of the new generation, it remains too expensive and not always available. Scientists have bypassed this obstacle by learning to sequence only those parts of DNA, "exons", where the genes encoding proteins are located, and this part makes up less than 1% of the entire genome. Having received a long list of mutations and weeding out all of them that are not relevant, scientists were able to identify mutations that lead to at least a dozen rare diseases, such as abnormal brain development, very low cholesterol, facial deformities, etc.

PhysicsThe seventh place is no longer with geneticists – it was given to physicists for creating a "quantum simulator", a system that helps them solve complex problems related to crystal lattices.

Usually, when testing this or that idea, trying to understand this or that experimental result from solid state physics, the researcher has to describe a three-dimensional set of points where there are electrons interacting with each other by magnetic fields. To do this, they make up a mathematical function called the Hamiltonian and try to solve it, which is not always possible.

This year, five groups at once adapted "quantum simulators" for solving such Hamiltonians, in which laser specks of light play the role of crystal ions, and the atoms trapped in these spots are assigned the role of interacting electrons. Then it remains to configure such a system for a certain Hamiltonian, run it and wait for it to present a solution itself. So far, such solutions are of a trial nature – quantum simulators have been tested on already solved Hamiltonians. The next step is those Hamiltonians that scientists could not cope with.

BiologyOn the eighth line of the list is another, this time a molecular simulator.

We are talking about scientists' attempts to simulate the behavior of proteins, molecules that are much more complex than DNA. This simulation turns into a real combinatorial nightmare for them, which not every supercomputer can cope with today. So, a simple protein consisting of only one hundred amino acids can curl into a ring in various ways, the number of which is ^10,130. Until now, supercomputers have allowed us to study the dynamics of proteins for too short a time in order to draw any conclusions. This year, the case has moved forward. With the help of a supercomputer with 512 processors, researchers from the USA managed to increase this time a hundred times and bring it to a millisecond. This turned out to be enough to investigate the behavior of atoms of a simple protein placed in water – in a millisecond it managed to curl and unfold 15 times. Researchers are now preparing to work with more powerful supercomputers to investigate more complex proteins.

MedicineThe penultimate of the ten scientific achievements of the year will not please active defenders of the rights of laboratory animals, but it will clearly benefit researchers.

"The rats are coming back!" – this is how Science magazine marked this achievement. The fact is that for a long time biologists preferred to study various neurosciences in humans, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, not on mice, but on rats, since their body is closer to human, and they are more likely to suffer from human diseases.

However, in 1989, a very promising technique was developed to turn off specific genes from mouse DNA called "mouse knockout". This technique did not work on rats, and the researchers switched to working with mice. This year, rats began to appear in laboratory cells again – at first, last year, they learned to genetically modify them in a way used for drosophila, and now the "mouse knockout" method has been adapted for rats.

At the end of the list are new medicines that prevent HIV infection. Given the many past failures in this direction, two unequivocal successes at once can be called a breakthrough. The first of these drugs, the tenofovir vaginal cream, reduces the risk of HIV infection in women by 39%. The second, oral prophylaxis, tested on a large group of men and women, reduced this risk by 43.8%.

From the editorial office:
From the context, you can guess what "prophylaxis" is. But what kind of preventive pill is this, science in our person is unknown. Perhaps the author of the article “Science" published on the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science knows this: The Breakthroughs of 2010 and Insights of the Decade”?

It is very similar to the original source of the above text (it is categorically not accepted to indicate sources in the SyNews, so I had to conduct a small journalistic investigation), and it says in English in white: “...an oral pre-exposure prophylaxis led to 43.8% fewer HIV infections in a group of men and transgender women who have sex with men” – without explanation.

By the way, in the original article, these "new medicines" for some reason are not at the end of the list, but in fourth place. The scientific achievements of the past year, according to the authentic version, coincide with the positions listed above only in the first three points:

1. A quantum oscillator visible to the naked eye (here it is magnified many times)

2. A synthetic bacterium (the diagram of its genome synthesis is shown in the figure)

3. Neanderthal genome (Neanderthal – in the center, Paabo – on the right) 

Then the editors of the journal Science placed the same achievements in a different order. We present it as authentic:

4. Prevention of HIV infection
5. Sequencing of exons and genes of rare hereditary diseases
6. Modeling of protein folding
7. Quantum simulator
8. Acceleration and cheapening of genome sequencing methods
9. Reprogramming of cells using synthetic RNA
10. "The Return of the rat"

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru22.12.2010