Top Ten Science Advances that Aid Humans in 2009

Science tends to plug along collecting data and results against a model of how the world works and against a hypothesis for how something not understood may work. Science for the sake of advancing human knowledge often pays back with results that aid humans after a long period of research. Progress is made daily on a number of scientific research topics including these award winning papers. I selected these top 2009 science advances because they show how science is helping humans around the world.

#1 Top 2009 Science Advance in Physics : Thin Sound Proofing Material

According to Popular Mechanics, researchers found a way to use the known quality of spherically placed objects to deflect sound and the way air bubbles resonate to create a new material that can help sound proof buildings. The rubber-like material is a soft, castable elastomer called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) can trap air bubbles that resonate at a low frequency and absorb sound transmissions. [1] As world population increases, more efficient sound proofing may help eliminate tensions caused by decreasted lack of space.

#2 Best 2009 Science Advance in Astronomy : A Larger Water World Like Earth

In the search for Earth-like planets in the universe, none is more handy for human migrations than one that contains water and has a human tolerant gravity. According to an article in Nature, astronomers installed an array of eight amateur-sized telescopes and measured the light coming from stars and looked for time segments where the light was blocked to identify planets. On one, they made measurements that identified a planet with a greater mass that Earth's and that indicated the presence of water[ 2].

#3 2009 Top Science Advance in Chemistry : Improved Process for Creating Similar Drugs to Treat Diseases

In the fight against disease, scientists often prepare a set of similar compounds that might have similar disease-fighting qualities. Because of the sheer number of potential combinations of chemicals, the process is lengthy and difficult. In an article in Nature, Stuart L. Schreiber discusses an innovation by Morton etal[3], in which scientists used their knowledge about which compounds naturally occur in many drug compounds to develop a process by which a set of eighty compounds can be made using a 'build-couple-pair' strategy that is more robust than commercially provided libraries[4].

#4 Best 2009 Science Advance in Computing: The World's Smallest Transistor

Scientists were able to create a one-molecule wide transistor that can hold three states using "orbital gating," a technique in which the channel charge is modulated using an external gate voltage using 100 nanometer gold wire and an 3 nanometer aluminum gate. These sizes mean that microchips are likely to become even smaller and more convenient for everyone to use[5].

#5 Biology Top 2009 Science Advance: Understanding the Speech Difference Between Humans and Chimpanzees

A team of researchers delved into how a minor change in DNA between humans and chimpanzees could result in speech. They rigorously tested two genome markers and found that the associated proteins impact other DNA genes. Their findings indicate longer dendrite development associated with the human gene change as well and associated brain alterantions in the area of brain already known to be associated with speech and cross-verified against areas known to cause speech defects or mental retardation when damaged [6].

#6 2009 Best Science Advance in Geology: New Method for Calculating Sea Rise in North Carolina

Scientists used accumulations of fossilized sea creatures (foraminifera) in the sediments found in salt marshes to calculate the increase in sea rise along the North Carolina coast. The method showed that latitude affects the rate of rise. The method allowed researchers to compare tide gauge data to their method and to get a historical view of the changing tides. This work will aid government land use planning for changes related to global warming and preventing problems and handling of emergencies related to coast usage[7].

#7 Top 2009 Science Advance in Medicine: Better Understanding of Long Term Touch Sensitive Pain

In "New Culprits in Chronic Pain" R. Douglas Fields discusses how GLIA, cells surrounding neurons detect neurotransmitters such as glutamates, ATP and nitric oxide promote healing but also increase signaling of injury to the brain[8]. The long term results of this study are likely to change the way chronic pain is treated and should prevent opiate addiction in chronic pain patients.

#8 Best 2009 Science Advance in Agriculture: Crops Tolerant to Heat

New heat tolerant crops are being developed by the University of Florida under investigator L. Curtis Hannah creating more robust seeds that use enzymes called AGPases, which control how much starch a plant stores within seeds that people can harvest for food. The altered wheat, rice and corn seeds produce higher yields in crops[9].

#9 Top 2009 Science Advance in Ecology : Groundwater Removal of Arsenic

A teams of scientists found that they could use a single DNA strand aptamer to remove arsenic out of groundwater in Vietnam. Rice production in soil tends to increase the level of arsenic and this product allows the removal of arsenic after five minutes of incubation with the aptamer. An efficient means of removal of arsenic from water will mean improved health for a large number of people throughout the world.

#10 2009 Best Science Advance in Environment: Understanding Carbon Sink in the Oceans

A team of researchers revised their original algorithms that dealt with climate change to track the dispersion of anthropogenic carbon in the ocean using known ocean surface factors of clorolurocarbons, Carbon (14), temperature and salinity to understand the world wide mixing of carbon[10]. Carbon is estimated to take 1000 years to "sink" out of cycling between land, air and ocean so understanding how different sources of carbon affect the ocean will help understand the problems related to carbon energy sources.

[1] Bubbly but quiet, Edwin L. Thomas, Nature, Volume 462 Number 7276 pp957-1088, Dec 24, 2009

[2] Water world larger than Earth, Geoffrey Marcy, Nature 462, 853-854 (17 December 2009)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7226/full/457153a.html

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121520021/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

[3] Synthesis of Natural-Product-Like Molecules with Over Eighty Distinct Scaffolds, Daniel Morton, Dr., Stuart Leach, Dr., Christopher Cordier, Dr., Stuart Warriner, Dr., Adam Nelson, Prof. *, Wiley InterScience, Volume 48 Issue 1, Pages 104 - 109, Published Online: 17 Nov 2008

[4] Molecular diversity by design, Stuart L. Schreiber, Nature 457, 153-154 (8 January 2009)

[5] Observation of molecular orbital gating, Hyunwook Song, Youngsang Kim, Yun Hee Jang, Heejun Jeong, Mark A. Reed & Takhee Lee, Nature 462, 1039-1043 (24 December 2009)

[6]Human-specific transcriptional regulation of CNS development genes by FOXP2, Genevieve Konopka, Jamee M. Bomar, Kellen Winden, Giovanni Coppola, Zophonias O. Jonsson, Fuying Gao, Sophia Peng, Todd M. Preuss, James A. Wohlschlegel& Daniel H. Geschwind, Nature462, 213-217 (12 November 2009)

[7] Timing and magnitude of recent accelerated sea-level rise (North Carolina, United States), Andrew C. Kemp, Benjamin P. Horton, Stephen J. Culver, D. Reide Corbett, Orson van de Plassche, W. Roland Gehrels4, Bruce C. Douglas5 and Andrew C. Parnell, Geology, November 2009 v. 37 no. 11 p. 1035-1038

[8] Neuroscience: Unbearable lightness of touch, Liam J. Drew & Amy B. MacDermott, Nature 462, Dec 3, 2009

[9] Heat-tolerant Crops Could Prevent Future Starvation and Help Preserve Biofuels, Stuart Michael Hutson, Discovery, (April 27, 2009)

[10] Arsenic Removal from Vietnamese Groundwater Using the Arsenic-Binding DNA Aptamer, Mina Kim, Hyun-Ju Um, SunBaek Bang, Sang-Hee Lee, Suk-Jung Oh, Ji-Hye Han, Kyoung-Woong Kim, Jiho Min and Yang-Hoon Kim, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2009, 43 (24), pp 9335-9340

[11] Reconstruction of the history of anthropogenic CO2 concentrations in the ocean, S. Khatiwala1, F. Primeau2 & T. Hall3, Nature 462, 346-349 (19 November 2009)