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Graphic shows a selection of scientific achievements of 2022.
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YEAR END

Scientific achievements of 2022

By Duncan Mil

December 31, 2022 - This year’s top science stories show inspiring advances from the James Webb Space Telescope to a project aiming to map every cell type in the human body.

In July, the James Webb Space Telescope sent images back to Earth that turn physics inside out. A planet-size network of powerful telescopes also brought a gigantic black hole at the centre of the Milky Way into focus in September.

In May, engineers at Northwestern University in the U.S. demonstrated the world’s smallest walking robot, measuring just half a millimetre wide.

In July, miners working in the Yukon in northwestern Canada uncovered a frozen baby mammoth while excavating permafrost. They named the animal “Nun cho ga,” which means “big baby animal” in the local native language.

China announced the discovery of a new mineral from moon samples in September. The China National Space Administration named the phosphate mineral Changesite-(Y). The mineral contains the isotope Helium 3, which is considered a great potential source of nuclear fusion energy.

The announcement places China as only the third nation to find a new mineral on the moon, after the U.S. and Russia, and is the sixth mineral to be identified since the first samples were brought back by NASA’s Apollo 11 in 1969.

After decades of failure, November saw the announcement that an experimental drug, lecanemab, can slow the destruction of the brain in Alzheimer’s disease.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 23/12/2022; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Government of Yukon, Human Cell Atlas, NASA, Northwestern University, People’s Daily
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