A message on the topic of the age of scientific discovery. Scientific news. Scientists reprogrammed plants for drought tolerance

For 15 years since the beginning of the new millennium, people did not even notice that they were in a different world: we live in a different solar system, we know how to repair genes and control prostheses with the power of thought. None of this happened in the 20th century.

Genetics

The human genome has been completely sequenced

Robot sorts human DNA in Petri dishes for a project The Human Genome

The Human Genome Project ( The Human Genome Project) began in 1990, a working draft of the genome structure was released in 2000, and the complete genome in 2003. However, even today additional analysis of some areas has not yet been completed. It was mainly performed at universities and research centers in the US, Canada and the UK. Genome sequencing is critical to drug development and understanding how the human body works.

Genetic engineering has reached a new level

In recent years, a revolutionary method has been developed to manipulate DNA using the so-called CRISP-mechanism. This technique allows selective editing of certain genes, which was not possible before.

Maths

Poincaré's theorem is proved

In 2002, Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman proved the Poincaré theorem, one of the seven millennium problems (important mathematical problems that have not been solved for decades). Perelman showed that the original three-dimensional surface (if there are no discontinuities in it) will necessarily evolve into a three-dimensional sphere. For this work, he received the prestigious Fields Medal, equivalent to the Nobel Prize in mathematics.

Astronomy

Dwarf planet Eris discovered

Eridu was first photographed on October 21, 2003, but was only noticed in the pictures at the beginning of 2005. Its discovery was the last straw in the debate about the fate of Pluto (whether to continue to consider it a planet or not), which changed the usual image of the solar system (see pp. 142–143).

Water found on Mars

In 2005, the European Space Agency's Mars Express discovered large deposits of water ice close to the surface - this is very important for the subsequent colonization of the Red Planet.

Physics

Global warming - faster than expected

In 2015, scientists from the World Glacier Monitoring Center at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), led by Dr. Michael Zemp, working together with colleagues from 30 countries, found that the rate of melting of glaciers on Earth to date, compared with the average rates for the 20th century, grew two or three times.

Quantum teleportation discovered

Such teleportation differs from the teleportation that science fiction writers like to talk about - with it, matter or energy is not transmitted over a distance. Experiments on the transfer of quantum states over long distances have been successfully carried out over the past 15 years by at least a dozen scientific groups. Quantum teleportation is very important for creating ultra-secure ciphers and quantum computers.

Existence of graphene experimentally confirmed

Its two-dimensional (one atom thick) crystal lattice exhibits unusual electrophysical properties. Graphene was first obtained by Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov in 2004 (Nobel Prize for 2010). It is planned to be used in electronics (in ultra-thin and ultra-fast transistors), composites, electrodes, etc. In addition, graphene is the second most durable material in the world (carbine is in the first place).

The existence of a quark-gluon plasma has been proven

In 2012, the experiments of physicists working with the RHIC accelerator at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA) were included in the Guinness Book of Records with the wording "for the highest temperature obtained in the laboratory." By colliding gold ions at the accelerator, scientists have achieved the emergence of quark-gluon plasma with a temperature of 4 trillion ° C (250 thousand times hotter than in the center of the Sun). About a microsecond after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with just such a plasma.

Higgs boson found

The existence of this elementary particle, which is responsible for the mass of all other particles, was theoretically predicted by Peter Higgs back in the 1960s. And it was found during experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 (for which Higgs, together with Francois Engler, received the Nobel Prize in 2013).

Biology

People were divided into three enterotypes

In 2011, scientists from Germany, France and several other research centers proved that, according to the genetics of the bacteria inhabiting us, people are divided into three categories, or enterotypes. The human enterotype manifests itself in a different reaction to food, drugs and diets, and therefore it became clear that no universal recipes could exist in these areas.

Created the first synthetic bacterial cell

In 2010, scientists from the Craig Venter Institute (which was one of the leaders in the race to decipher the human genome) created the first fully synthetic chromosome with a genome. When it was built into a bacterial cell devoid of genetic material, it began to function and divide according to the laws prescribed by the new genome. In the future, a synthetic genome will make it possible to create vaccines against new viral strains in hours, not weeks, to produce efficient biofuels, new food products, etc.

Successfully recorded and re-recorded memories

Since 2010, several research groups (USA, France, Germany) have learned how to write false memories into the brains of mice, erase real ones, and also turn pleasant memories into unpleasant ones. The matter has not yet reached the human brain, but it will not be long.

'Ethical' (not from embryos) pluripotent stem cells obtained

In 2012, Shinya Yamanaka, together with John Gurdon, won the Nobel Prize for the 2006 discovery of obtaining mouse pluripotent stem cells by epigenetic reprogramming. Over the next decade, at least a dozen scientific groups have made impressive progress in this area, including with human cells. This bodes well for breakthroughs in cancer therapy, regenerative medicine, and human (or organ) cloning.

Paleontology

Dinosaur soft tissue discovered for the first time

Mary Schweitzer led the scientific team that described the collagen isolated from the femur of Tyrannosaurus rex.

In 2005, University of North Carolina molecular paleontologist Mary Schweitzer discovered soft tissue in the fossilized limb of a 65-million-year-old tyrannosaurus rex from Montana. Previously, it was believed that any proteins would decompose in a maximum of several thousand years, so no one was looking for them in the fossils. After that, soft tissues (collagen) were found in other ancient samples.

Neanderthal and Denisovan genes found in humans

Participants of the international symposium "Transition to the Upper Paleolithic in Eurasia: cultural dynamics and development of the genus Homo» visiting the excavation site in the central hall of the Denisova Cave

From the work of two scientific groups, it became clear that from 1 to 3% of the genome of an average European or Asian goes back to Neanderthals. But each modern individual has dissimilar Neanderthal alleles (different forms of the same gene), so the total amount of "Neanderthal" genes is much higher, up to 30%. The "heirs" of the Neanderthals (crossing took place about 45 thousand years ago) are mostly Europeans; Asians in the genome contain traces of crossing with another hominid - "Denisovsky man". The most "clean" Homo sapiens- Natives of the African continent.

The medicine

Breathing early stage of lung cancer

A year ago, a team of Israeli, American and British scientists developed a device that can accurately identify lung cancer and determine what stage it is in. The basis of the device was a breath analyzer with a built-in nanochip NaNose, capable of "sniffing out" a cancerous tumor with 90 percent accuracy, even when the cancerous nodule is almost invisible. In the near future we should expect analyzers that will be able to determine other types of cancer by “smell”.

Developed the first fully autonomous artificial heart

American company specialists Abiomed developed the world's first fully autonomous permanent artificial heart for implantation ( AbioCor). An artificial heart is intended for patients who cannot treat their own heart or implant a donor one.

Bionics

Created biomechanical devices and prostheses controlled by thought

American Zack Water tested a bionic leg prosthesis by climbing the stairs to the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower skyscraper in Chicago.

In 2013, the first prototypes of “smart” prostheses with feedback (emulation of tactile sensations) appeared, which allow a person to feel what the prosthesis “feels”. In the 2010s, devices separate from humans were also created, controlled only through a mental interface (sometimes with invasive contacts, but more often it looks like a head hoop with a dry electrode) - computer games and simulators, manipulators, vehicles, etc.

Electronics

Crossed the petaflop barrier

In 2008, a new supercomputer at Los Alamos (USA) ran at a rate of more than a quadrillion (thousand trillion) operations per second. The next barrier, exascale (quintillion operations per second), will be reached in the coming years. Systems with such incredible speed are needed primarily for high-performance computing - data processing of scientific experiments, climate modeling, financial transactions, etc.

Photo: Alamy, SPL, Newscom / Legion Media, SPL / Legion Media (X2), Photo courtesy of North Carolina State University, Reuters / Pix-Stream, Alexander Kryazhev / RIA Novosti, Reuters / Pix-Stream, Michael Hoch, Maximilien Brice / © 2008 CERN, for the benefit of the CMS Collaboration, AP / East News

Scientific discoveries are made all the time. Throughout the year, a huge number of reports and articles on various topics are published, and thousands of patents are issued for new inventions. Among all this, one can find truly incredible achievements. This article presents ten of the most interesting scientific discoveries that were made in the first half of 2016.

1. A small genetic mutation that occurred 800 million years ago led to the emergence of multicellular life forms

According to research, an ancient molecule, GK-PID, caused unicellular organisms to evolve into multicellular organisms approximately 800 million years ago. It was found that the GK-PID molecule acted as a "molecular carabiner": it collected the chromosomes together and fixed them on the inner wall of the cell membrane when division occurred. This allowed the cells to multiply properly and not become cancerous.

A fascinating discovery indicates that the ancient version of GK-PID did not behave the way it does now. The reason why she turned into a "genetic carbine" is due to a small genetic mutation that reproduced itself. It turns out that the emergence of multicellular life forms is the result of one identifiable mutation.

2. Discovery of a new prime number

In January 2016, mathematicians discovered a new prime number as part of the "Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search", a large-scale volunteer computing project to search for Mersenne primes. This is 2^74,207,281 - 1.

You might want to clarify what the "Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search" project was created for. Modern cryptography uses Mersenne prime numbers to decipher encoded information (49 such numbers are known in total), as well as complex numbers. "2^74,207,281 - 1" is currently the longest prime number in existence (it is almost 5 million digits longer than its predecessor). The total number of digits that make up the new prime number is about 24,000,000, so "2^74,207,281 - 1" is the only practical way to write it down on paper.

3. A ninth planet has been discovered in the solar system.

Even before the discovery of Pluto in the 20th century, scientists suggested that there was a ninth planet, Planet X, outside the orbit of Neptune. This assumption was due to gravitational clustering, which could only be caused by a massive object. In 2016, Caltech researchers presented evidence that a ninth planet - with an orbital period of 15,000 years - does exist.

According to the astronomers who made the discovery, there is "only a 0.007% chance (1:15,000) that the clustering is a coincidence." At the moment, the existence of the ninth planet remains hypothetical, but astronomers have calculated that its orbit is huge. If Planet X really exists, then it weighs approximately 2-15 times more than the Earth and is located at a distance of 600-1200 astronomical units from the Sun. The astronomical unit is 150,000,000 kilometers; this means that the ninth planet is 240,000,000,000 kilometers from the Sun.

4. An almost eternal way to store data has been discovered

Sooner or later everything becomes obsolete, and at the moment there is no way that would allow you to store data on one device for a really long period of time. Or does it exist? Recently, scientists from the University of Southampton made an amazing discovery. They used nano-structured glass to successfully create a data recording and retrieval process. The storage device is a small glass disk the size of a 25 cent coin that can store 360 ​​terabytes of data and is not affected by high temperatures (up to 1000 degrees Celsius). Its average shelf life at room temperature is approximately 13.8 billion years (about the same time that our universe has existed).

Data is written to the device using an ultra-fast laser using short, intense light pulses. Each file consists of three layers of nanostructured dots that are only 5 micrometers apart from each other. Data reading is performed in five dimensions due to the three-dimensional arrangement of nanostructured dots, as well as their size and direction.

5. Blind-eyed fish, which are able to "walk on the walls", show similarities with four-legged vertebrates.

Over the past 170 years, science has found that land-dwelling vertebrates evolved from fish that swam in the seas of ancient Earth. However, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology found that Taiwan's wall-walking blind-eyed fish have the same anatomical features as amphibians or reptiles.

This is a very important discovery in terms of evolutionary adaptation, as it could help scientists better understand how prehistoric fish evolved into terrestrial tetrapods. The difference between blind-eyed fish and other types of fish that are able to move on land lies in their gait, which provides "support for the pelvic girdle" when they rise.

6. Private company "SpaceX" carried out a successful vertical landing of the rocket

In comics and cartoons, you usually see rockets landing on planets and the moon in a vertical manner, but in reality, this is extremely difficult to do. Government agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency are developing rockets that either fall into the ocean to be retrieved (expensive) or purposefully burn up in the atmosphere. Being able to land a rocket vertically would save an incredible amount of money.

On April 8, 2016, the private company "SpaceX" carried out a successful vertical landing of the rocket; she managed to do this on an autonomous spaceport drone ship. This incredible achievement will save money as well as time between launches.

For SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, this goal has been a top priority for years. Although the achievement belongs to a private enterprise, vertical landing technology will also be available to government agencies like NASA so that they can advance further in space exploration.

SourcePhoto 7A cybernetic implant helped a paralyzed man move his fingers

A man who has been paralyzed for six years has been able to move his fingers thanks to a small chip implanted in his brain.

This is the merit of researchers from Ohio State University. They managed to create a device that is a small implant connected to an electronic sleeve worn on the patient's arm. This sleeve uses wires to stimulate specific muscles to cause real-time finger movement. Thanks to the chip, the paralyzed man was even able to play the musical game "Guitar Hero", much to the surprise of the doctors and scientists who took part in the project.

8. Stem cells implanted in the brains of stroke patients allow them to walk again

In a clinical trial, researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine implanted modified human stem cells directly into the brains of eighteen stroke patients. The procedures were successful, without any negative consequences, except for a mild headache observed in some patients after anesthesia. In all patients, the recovery period after a stroke was quite fast and successful. What's more, patients who were previously wheelchair-bound were able to walk freely again.

9. Carbon dioxide pumped into the ground can turn into solid stone.

Carbon capture is an important part of keeping the balance of CO2 emissions on the planet. When fuel burns, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. This is one of the causes of global climate change. Icelandic scientists may have found a way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere and exacerbate the greenhouse effect problem.

They pumped CO2 into volcanic rocks, accelerating the natural process of turning basalt into carbonates, which then become limestone. This process usually takes hundreds of thousands of years, but the Icelandic scientists managed to reduce it to two years. Carbon injected into the ground can be stored underground or used as a building material.

10 Earth Has A Second Moon

NASA scientists have discovered an asteroid that orbits the Earth and is therefore the second permanent near-Earth satellite. There are many objects in the orbit of our planet (space stations, artificial satellites, etc.), but we can only see one Moon. However, in 2016 NASA confirmed the existence of 2016 HO3.

The asteroid is far from the Earth and is more under the gravitational influence of the Sun than our planet, but it does revolve around its orbit. 2016 HO3 is much smaller than the Moon: its diameter is only 40-100 meters.

According to Paul Chodas, manager of the NASA Center for the Study of Near-Earth Objects, 2016 HO3, which has been a quasi-satellite of the Earth for more than a hundred years, will leave the orbit of our planet in a few centuries.

Almost everyone who is interested in the history of the development of science, engineering and technology has at least once in his life thought about how the development of mankind could go without knowledge of mathematics or, for example, if we didn’t have such a necessary item as a wheel, which became almost basis for human development. However, only key discoveries are often considered and paid attention to, while less known and widespread discoveries are sometimes simply not mentioned, which, however, does not make them insignificant, because each new knowledge gives humanity the opportunity to climb a step higher in its development.

The 20th century and its scientific discoveries have turned into a real Rubicon, crossing which progress has accelerated its pace several times, identifying itself with a sports car that is impossible to keep up with. In order to stay on the crest of the scientific and technological wave now, not hefty skills are needed. Of course, you can read scientific journals, various kinds of articles and works of scientists who are struggling to solve a particular problem, but even in this case, it will not be possible to keep up with progress, and therefore it remains to catch up and observe.

As you know, in order to look into the future, you need to know the past. Therefore, today we will talk about the 20th century, the century of discoveries, which changed the way of life and the world around us. It should be noted right away that this will not be a list of the best discoveries of the century or any other top, this will be a brief overview of some of those discoveries that have changed, and possibly are changing the world.

In order to talk about discoveries, it is necessary to characterize the concept itself. We take the following definition as a basis:

Discovery - a new achievement made in the process of scientific knowledge of nature and society; the establishment of previously unknown, objectively existing patterns, properties and phenomena of the material world.

Top 25 Great Scientific Discoveries of the 20th Century

1. Planck's quantum theory. He derived a formula that determines the shape of the spectral radiation curve and the universal constant. He discovered the smallest particles - quanta and photons, with the help of which Einstein explained the nature of light. In the 1920s, quantum theory developed into quantum mechanics.
2. Discovery of X-rays - electromagnetic radiation with a wide range of wavelengths. The discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Roentgen greatly influenced human life, and today it is impossible to imagine modern medicine without them.
3. Einstein's theory of relativity. In 1915, Einstein introduced the concept of relativity and derived an important formula relating energy and mass. The theory of relativity explained the essence of gravity - it arises due to the curvature of four-dimensional space, and not as a result of the interaction of bodies in space.
4. Discovery of penicillin. The fungus Penicillium notatum, getting into the culture of bacteria, causes their complete death - this was proved by Alexander Flemming. In the 40s, a production was developed, which later began to be produced on an industrial scale.
5. De Broglie waves. In 1924, it was found that wave-particle duality is inherent in all particles, not just photons. Broglie presented their wave properties in a mathematical form. The theory made it possible to develop the concept of quantum mechanics, explained the diffraction of electrons and neutrons.
6. Discovery of the structure of the new DNA helix. In 1953, a new model of the structure of the molecule was obtained by combining the X-ray diffraction information of Rosalyn Franklin and Maurice Wilkins and the theoretical developments of Chargaff. She was brought out by Francis Crick and James Watson.
7. Rutherford's planetary model of the atom. He deduced a hypothesis about the structure of the atom and extracted energy from atomic nuclei. The model explains the fundamentals of the laws of charged particles.
8. Ziegler-Nath catalysts. In 1953 they carried out the polarization of ethylene and propylene.
9. Discovery of transistors. A device consisting of 2 p-n junctions, which are directed towards each other. Thanks to his invention by Julius Lilienfeld, the technique began to shrink in size. The first working bipolar transistor was introduced in 1947 by John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain.
10. Creation of a radiotelegraph. Alexander Popov's invention, using Morse code and radio signals, first saved a ship at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. But the first to patent a similar invention was Gulielmo Marcone.
11. Discovery of neutrons. These uncharged particles with a mass slightly larger than that of protons made it possible to penetrate the nucleus without obstacles and destabilize it. Later it was proved that under the influence of these particles, the nuclei are divided, but even more neutrons are produced. So the artificial one was discovered.
12. Method of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Edwards and Steptoe figured out how to extract an intact egg from a woman, created optimal conditions for her life and growth in a test tube, figured out how to fertilize her and at what time to return her back to her mother's body.
13. The first manned flight into space. In 1961, it was Yuri Gagarin who was the first to realize this, which became the real embodiment of the dream of the stars. Mankind has learned that the space between the planets is surmountable, and bacteria, animals and even humans can easily live in space.
14. Discovery of fullerene. In 1985, scientists discovered a new kind of carbon - fullerene. Now, due to its unique properties, it is used in many devices. Based on this technique, carbon nanotubes were created - twisted and cross-linked layers of graphite. They show a wide variety of properties: from metallic to semiconductor.
15. Cloning. In 1996, scientists succeeded in obtaining the first clone of a sheep, named Dolly. The egg was gutted, the nucleus of an adult sheep was inserted into it and planted in the uterus. Dolly was the first animal that managed to survive, the rest of the embryos of different animals died.
16. Discovery of black holes. In 1915, Karl Schwarzschild put forward a hypothesis about the existence of a black hole whose gravity is so great that even objects moving at the speed of light - black holes - cannot leave it.
17. Theory. This is a generally accepted cosmological model, which previously described the development of the Universe, which was in a singular state, characterized by infinite temperature and matter density. The model was started by Einstein in 1916.
18. Discovery of relic radiation. This is the cosmic microwave background radiation, which has been preserved since the beginning of the formation of the Universe and fills it evenly. In 1965, its existence was experimentally confirmed, and it serves as one of the main confirmations of the Big Bang theory.
19. Approaching the creation of artificial intelligence. It is a technology for building intelligent machines, first defined in 1956 by John McCarthy. According to him, researchers to solve specific problems can use methods of understanding a person that may not be biologically observed in humans.
20. The invention of holography. This special photographic method was proposed in 1947 by Dennis Gabor, in which, with the help of a laser, three-dimensional images of objects close to real are recorded and restored.
21. Discovery of insulin. In 1922, the pancreatic hormone was obtained by Frederick Banting, and diabetes mellitus ceased to be a fatal disease.
22. Blood groups. This discovery in 1900-1901 divided the blood into 4 groups: O, A, B and AB. It became possible to properly transfuse blood to a person, which would not end tragically.
23. Mathematical information theory. Claude Shannon's theory made it possible to determine the capacity of a communication channel.
24. Invention of Nylon. Chemist Wallace Carothers in 1935 discovered a method for obtaining this polymeric material. He discovered some of its varieties with high viscosity even at high temperatures.
25. Discovery of stem cells. They are the progenitors of all existing cells in the human body and have the ability to self-renew. Their possibilities are great and are just beginning to be explored by science.

There is no doubt that all these discoveries are only a small part of what the 20th century showed to society, and it cannot be said that only these discoveries were significant, and all the rest became just a background, this is not at all the case.

It was the last century that showed us the new boundaries of the Universe, saw the light, quasars (superpowerful sources of radiation in our Galaxy) were discovered, the first carbon nanotubes with unique superconductivity and strength were discovered and created.

All these discoveries, one way or another, are just the tip of the iceberg, which includes more than a hundred significant discoveries over the past century. Naturally, all of them have become a catalyst for changes in the world in which we now live, and the fact remains undeniable that the changes do not end there.

The 20th century can be safely called, if not the “golden”, then certainly the “silver” age of discoveries, but looking back and comparing new achievements with the past, it seems that in the future we will have quite a few interesting great discoveries, in fact, the successor of the last century, the current XXI only confirms these views.

Over the past few centuries, we have made countless discoveries that have greatly improved the quality of our daily lives and understanding how the world around us works. Assessing the full importance of these discoveries is very difficult, if not almost impossible. But one thing is certain, some of them have literally changed our lives once and for all. From penicillin and the screw pump to X-rays and electricity, here is a list of the 25 greatest discoveries and inventions of mankind.

25. Penicillin

If in 1928 the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming had not discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic, we would still be dying from diseases such as stomach ulcers, abscesses, streptococcal infections, scarlet fever, leptospirosis, Lyme disease and many others.

24. Mechanical watch


Photo: pixabay

There are conflicting theories about what the first mechanical watches actually looked like, but most often researchers adhere to the version that in 723 AD, the Chinese monk and mathematician Ai Xing (I-Hsing) created them. It was this fundamental invention that allowed us to measure time.

23. Heliocentrism of Copernicus


Photo: WP / wikimedia

In 1543, almost on his deathbed, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus unveiled his landmark theory. According to the works of Copernicus, it became known that the Sun is our planetary system, and all its planets revolve around our star, each in its own orbit. Until 1543, astronomers believed that the Earth was the center of the universe.

22. Blood circulation


Photo: Bryan Brandenburg

One of the most important discoveries in medicine was the discovery of the circulatory system, which was announced in 1628 by the English physician William Harvey. He was the first person to describe the entire circulation system and properties of the blood that the heart pumps throughout our body from the brain to the fingertips.

21. Screw pump


Photo: David Hawgood / geographic.org.uk

One of the most famous ancient Greek scientists, Archimedes, is considered the author of one of the world's first water pumps. His device was a rotating corkscrew that pushed water up a pipe. This invention took irrigation systems to the next level and is still used today in many wastewater treatment plants.

20. Gravity


Photo: wikimedia

Everyone knows this story - Isaac Newton, the famous English mathematician and physicist, discovered gravity after an apple fell on his head in 1664. Thanks to this event, we first learned why objects fall down, and why the planets revolve around the Sun.

19. Pasteurization


Photo: wikimedia

Pasteurization was discovered in the 1860s by the French scientist Louis Pasteur. It is a heat treatment process during which pathogenic microorganisms are destroyed in certain foods and drinks (wine, milk, beer). This discovery had a significant impact on public health and the development of the food industry around the world.

18. Steam engine


Photo: pixabay

Everyone knows that modern civilization was forged in factories built during the Industrial Revolution, and that it was all done using steam engines. The steam-powered engine was invented a long time ago, but over the past century it has been significantly improved by three British inventors: Thomas Savery, Thomas Newcomen, and the most famous of them, James Watt (Thomas Savery, Thomas Newcomen, James Watt).

17. Conditioner


Photo: Ildar Sagdejev / wikimedia

The primitive climate control system has existed since ancient times, but it changed significantly when the first modern electric air conditioner appeared in 1902. It was invented by a young engineer named Willis Carrier, a native of Buffalo, New York (Buffalo, New York).

16. Electricity


Photo: pixabay

The fateful discovery of electricity is credited to the English scientist Michael Faraday. Among his key discoveries, it is worth noting the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. Faraday's experiments also led to the creation of the first generator, which became the forerunner of the huge generators that today produce the electricity we are used to in everyday life.

15. DNA


Photo: pixabay

Many believe that it was the American biologist James Watson and the English physicist Francis Crick (James Watson, Francis Crick) who discovered in the 1950s, but in fact, this macromolecule was first identified back in the late 1860s by the Swiss chemist Friedrich Meischer (Friedrich Miescher). Then, several decades after Meisher's discovery, other scientists conducted a series of studies that finally helped us figure out how an organism passes its genes to the next generation, and how its cells work.

14. Anesthesia


Photo: Wikimedia

Simple forms of anesthesia such as opium, mandrake and alcohol have been used by humans for a long time, and the first references to them date back to 70 AD. But since 1847, pain relief has been taken to a new level, when the American surgeon Henry Bigelow first introduced ether and chloroform into his practice, making extremely painful invasive procedures much more bearable.

13. Theory of relativity

Photo: Wikimedia

Incorporating Albert Einstein's two interrelated theories, special and general relativity, published in 1905, the theory of relativity transformed the entire theoretical physics and astronomy of the 20th century and eclipsed the 200-year-old theory of mechanics proposed by Newton. Einstein's theory of relativity has become the basis for much of the scientific work of modern times.

12. X-rays


Photo: Nevit Dilmen / wikimedia

German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen accidentally discovered X-rays in 1895 when he was observing fluorescence produced by a cathode ray tube. For this landmark discovery in 1901, the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize, the first of its kind in the field of physical sciences.

11. Telegraph


Photo: wikipedia

Since 1753, many researchers have been conducting their experiments to establish communication at a distance using electricity, but a significant breakthrough did not come until a few decades later, when in 1835 Joseph Henry and Edward Davy (Joseph Henry, Edward Davy) invented the electrical relay. With this device, they created the first telegraph 2 years later.

10. Periodic system of chemical elements


Photo: sandbh / wikimedia

In 1869, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev noticed that if you sort chemical elements according to their atomic mass, they conditionally line up in groups with similar properties. Based on this information, he created the first periodic table, one of the greatest discoveries in chemistry, which was later nicknamed the periodic table in his honor.

9. Infrared rays


Photo: AIRS / flickr

Infrared radiation was discovered by the British astronomer William Herschel in 1800, when he was studying the heating effect of light of different colors, using a prism to spread the light into a spectrum, and measuring the changes with thermometers. Today, infrared radiation is used in many areas of our lives, including meteorology, heating systems, astronomy, tracking heat-intensive objects, and many other areas.

8. Nuclear magnetic resonance


Photo: Mj-bird / wikimedia

Today, nuclear magnetic resonance is constantly used as an extremely accurate and efficient diagnostic tool in the field of medicine. This phenomenon was first described and calculated by the American physicist Isidor Rabi in 1938 while observing molecular beams. In 1944, the American scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.

7. Moldboard plow


Photo: wikimedia

Invented in the 18th century, the mouldboard plow was the first plow that not only turned up the soil, but also stirred it up, which made it possible to cultivate even very stubborn and stony land for agricultural purposes. Without this tool, agriculture as we know it today would not exist in northern Europe or central America.

6 Camera Obscura


Photo: wikimedia

The forerunner of modern cameras and camcorders was the camera obscura (translated as dark room), which was an optical device used by artists to create quick sketches while traveling outside their studios. A hole in one of the walls of the device served to create an inverted image of what was happening outside the chamber. The picture was displayed on the screen (on the opposite wall of the dark box from the hole). These principles have been known for centuries, but in 1568 the Venetian Daniel Barbaro modified the camera obscura with converging lenses.

5. Paper


Photo: pixabay

Papyrus and amate, used by ancient Mediterranean peoples and pre-Columbian Americans, are often considered the first examples of modern paper. But it would not be entirely correct to consider them real paper. References to the first writing paper production date back to China during the Eastern Han Empire (AD 25-220). The first paper is mentioned in the annals dedicated to the activities of the judicial dignitary Cai Lun (Cai Lun).

4. Teflon


Photo: pixabay

The material that keeps your frying pan from burning was actually invented completely by accident by American chemist Roy Plunkett when he was looking for a replacement for refrigerants to make your home safer. During one of his experiments, the scientist discovered a strange slippery resin, which later became better known as Teflon.

3. The theory of evolution and natural selection

Photo: wikimedia

Inspired by his observations during his second exploratory journey in 1831-1836, Charles Darwin began to write his famous theory of evolution and natural selection, which, according to scientists from around the world, has become a key description of the mechanism of development of all life on Earth.

2. Liquid crystals


Photo: William Hook / flickr

If the Austrian botanist and physiologist Friedrich Reinitzer had not discovered liquid crystals while testing the physico-chemical properties of various cholesterol derivatives in 1888, today you would not know what LCD TVs or flat LCD monitors are.

1. Polio vaccine


Photo: GDC Global / flickr

On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Jonas Salk announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine against polio, a virus that causes severe chronic illness. In 1952, an epidemic of this disease diagnosed 58,000 people in the United States, and the disease claimed 3,000 innocent lives. This spurred Salk to seek salvation, and now the civilized world is safe at least from this disaster.

MOSCOW, February 8 - RIA Novosti. The post-Soviet era is considered to be a time of deep crisis in Russian science, however, both in the 1990s and later, Russian scientists managed to obtain world-class scientific results.

In honor of the Day of Russian Science, the RIA Novosti agency conducted a large-scale survey of experts and compiled a list of the most important and most striking discoveries made by Russian scientists over the past 20 years. This list does not pretend to be complete and objective; it does not include many discoveries, but it does give an idea of ​​the scale of what has been done in post-Soviet science.

superheavy elements

It was in the post-Soviet era that Russian scientists took the lead in the race for the superheavy elements of the periodic table. From 2000 to 2010, physicists from the Flerov laboratory at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, near Moscow, synthesized for the first time the six heaviest elements with atomic numbers from 113 to 118.

Two of them are already officially recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and. The application for the discovery of elements 113, 115, 117 is still being considered by IUPAC.

“It is possible that one of the new elements will be given the name Muscovy,” Andrey Popeko, deputy director of Flerov’s laboratory, told RIA Novosti.

Exawatt lasers

Russia has created a technology that allows you to get the most powerful light radiation on Earth. In 2006, the PEARL (PEtawatt pARametric Laser) facility was built at the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, based on the technology of parametric light amplification in nonlinear optical crystals. This installation gave out an impulse with a power of 0.56 petawatts, which is hundreds of times greater than the power of all power plants on Earth.

Now IAP is planning to increase the power of PEARL to 10 petawatts. In addition, it is planned, which involves the creation of a laser with a power of up to 200 petawatts, and in the future - up to 1 exawatt.

Such laser systems will make it possible to study extreme physical processes. In addition, they can be used to initiate thermonuclear reactions in targets; they can be used to create laser neutron sources with unique properties.

Heavy duty magnetic fields

Physicists at the Russian nuclear center in Sarov, led by Alexander Pavlovsky, developed a method in the early 1990s to produce record-breaking magnetic fields.

With the help of explosive magnetocumulative generators, where the blast wave "squeezed" the magnetic field, they managed to obtain a field value of 28 megagauss. This value is an absolute record for an artificially obtained magnetic field, it is hundreds of millions of times higher than the strength of the Earth's magnetic field.

Using such magnetic fields, one can study the behavior of matter under extreme conditions, in particular, the behavior of superconductors.

Oil and gas will not run out

The press and environmentalists regularly remind us that oil and gas reserves will soon - in 70-100 years - come to an end, this may lead to the collapse of modern civilization. However, scientists from the Gubkin Russian University of Oil and Gas argue that this is not the case.

Through experiments and theoretical calculations, they proved that oil and gas can be formed not as a result of the decomposition of organic substances, as the generally accepted theory says, but in an abiogenic (non-biological) way. They found that in the upper mantle of the Earth, at depths of 100-150 kilometers, there are conditions for the synthesis of complex hydrocarbon systems.

"This fact allows us to speak of natural gas (at least) as a renewable and inexhaustible source of energy," Professor Vladimir Kucherov from Gubkin University told RIA Novosti.

Lake Vostok

Perhaps the last major geographical discovery on Earth belongs to Russian scientists - the discovery of the subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. In 1996, together with British colleagues, they discovered it using seismic sounding and radar observations.

Drilling a well at Vostok station allowed Russian scientists to obtain unique data on the climate on Earth over the past half a million years. They were able to determine how temperature and CO2 concentration changed in the distant past.

In 2012, a Russian polar explorer managed for the first time to penetrate this relic lake, which was isolated from the outside world for about a million years. The study of water samples from it, perhaps, will lead to and will allow us to draw conclusions about the possibility of the existence of life outside the Earth - for example, on Jupiter's moon Europa.

Mammoths - contemporaries of the ancient Greeks

Mammoths were contemporaries of the Cretan civilization and became extinct already in historical time, and not in the Stone Age, as previously thought.

In 1993, Sergei Vartanyan and his colleagues discovered the remains of pygmy mammoths, whose height did not exceed 1.8 meters, on Wrangel Island, which, apparently, was the last refuge of this species.

Radiocarbon dating, carried out with the participation of specialists from the Faculty of Geography of St. Petersburg University, showed that mammoths lived on this island until 2000 BC. Until that moment, it was believed that the last mammoths lived in Taimyr 10 thousand years ago, but new data have shown that mammoths existed during the time of the Minoan culture in Crete, the construction of Stonehenge and the 11th dynasty of the Egyptian pharaohs.

The third kind of people

The work of Siberian archaeologists under the leadership of Academician Anatoly Derevyanko made it possible to discover a new, third kind of human beings.

Until now, scientists were aware of the two highest species of ancient people - Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals. However, in 2010, a study of DNA from bones showed that 40 thousand years ago in Eurasia, a third species lived with them, named Denisovans.

Methane and water on Mars

Although Russia failed to carry out successful independent interplanetary missions in the post-Soviet period, Russian scientific instruments on American and European probes and ground-based observations have brought unique data about other planets.

In particular, in 1999, Vladimir Krasnopolsky from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and his colleagues, using an infrared spectrometer at the Hawaiian CFHT telescope, first recorded absorption lines of methane on Mars. This discovery was a sensation, because on Earth the main source of methane in the atmosphere are living beings. These data were then confirmed by measurements from the European Mars Express probe. Although the Curiosity rover has not yet confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, this search does.

The Russian HAND instrument aboard the Mars-Odyssey spacecraft, developed under the direction of Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has shown for the first time that there are huge reserves of subsurface water ice near the poles of Mars and even at mid-latitudes.

© State Astronomical Institute. PC. Sternberg Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov/ Zhanna Rodionova

He began his work by comparing mythological motifs among the natives of Siberia and America, and then included in his research data on the cultures of almost all the peoples of the world, which made it possible to draw an impressive picture of the primary settlement of people around the globe.

He proved that there are stable coincidences of certain mythological motifs in certain regions, which correlate with the most ancient movements of primitive tribes, which is confirmed by archeological and genetic data.

"Thus, we have - for the first time in the history of science - a method for a relatively accurate assessment of the time of existence of the components of the oral tradition, which solves a number of central problems of folklore or, at least, gives researchers a guideline for subsequent research," the professor told RIA Novosti. Sergei Neklyudov from the Russian State University for the Humanities.

Millennium Challenge

Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman in 2002 proved the Poincaré conjecture - one of the seven "millennium problems" from the list of the Clay Institute of Mathematics. The hypothesis itself was formulated back in 1904, and its essence boils down to the fact that a three-dimensional object without through holes is topologically equivalent to a sphere.

Perelman was able to prove this hypothesis, but he received unprecedented popularity in the media when he received $ 1 million from the Clay Institute for this proof.