1 January – Beginning of the implementation of Plan S, an initiative for open-accessscience publishing launched in 2018[1][2] that requires papers from 2021 onwards from over 10 European countries that resulted from research funded by public grants to be published under an open licence in compliant journals or platforms, available to all.[3][4]
5 January – Using theoretical calculations, researchers suggest that humans would be unable to control a superintelligent AI.[13][14]
6 January: The first systematic review of the scientific evidence around global waste, its management and its impact on human health and life is published.[15]
6 January
Scientists report the successful use of gene editing in mice with progeria, a premature aging disease.[16][17][18]
Chinese researchers report that they have built the world's largest integrated quantum communication network, combining over 700 optical fibers with two QKD-ground-to-satellite links for a total distance between nodes of the network of networks of up to ~4,600km.[19]
The first systematic review of the scientific evidence around global waste, its management and its impact on human health and life is published, providing assessments, suggestions for corrective action, engineering solutions and requests for further research. It finds that about half of all the municipal solid terrestrial waste – or close to one billion tons per year – is either not collected or mismanaged after collection, often being burned in open and uncontrolled fires. Authors conclude that "massive risk mitigation can be delivered" while noting that broad priority areas each lack a "high-quality research base", partly due to the absence of "substantial research funding", which scientists often require.[15][20]
7 January
A potential mRNA vaccine for multiple sclerosis is presented by a collaboration including BioNTech, with a study in mice showing great promise for improving symptoms and stopping disease progression.[21][22][18]
The Distribution and Frequency of P681H and D614G Mutations Among All SARS-CoV-2 Sequences by Month Reported in the GISAID Database in Year 2020
Time-series representations of mean relative body sizeScientists conclude that environmental factors played a major role in the evolution of the slowly-evolving, currently low-diverse Crocodilia (and their ancestor-relatives), with warmer climate being associated with high evolutionary rates and large body sizes.[23]
Artist's conception of the quasar J0313–1806, seen as it was only 670 million years after the Big BangScientists report the discovery of the most distant, and therefore oldest, quasar, J0313–1806. It is located 13 bn light-years away, does not yet have an accepted non-identifier name and significantly challenges theoretical models of early SMBH growth, apparently existing just ~670million years after the Big Bang despite its large size.[27][28]
Archaeologists report that the African cultural phase, called Middle Stone Age, thought to have lasted from ~300–30 ka, lasted to ~11 ka in some places, highlighting significant spatial and temporal cultural variability.[29]
Larger populations promote category convergence across populationsResearchers report that large populations consistently converge on highly similar category systems, relevant to lexical aspects of large communication networks and cultures.[35]
13 January: A group of 17 high-ranking ecologists conclude that current challenges – themselves individually – that humanity faces and which may lead to a "ghastly" future are large and underestimated.[36]
In Lyon, France, the first transplant of both arms and shoulders is performed on an Icelandic patient.[38][39]
Astrophysicists report that energy extraction – with high efficiency – from rotatingblack holes with a high spin via reconnection of magnetic field lines of an externally supplied magnetic field that accelerates escaping plasma particles is possible. Advanced civilizations may be capable of doing so.[40]
A group of 17 high-ranking ecologists publish a perspective piece that reviews a number of studies that, based on current trends, indicate that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed, concluding that current challenges – themselves in specific – that humanity faces are large and underestimated. The small group cautions that such an "optimism bias" is prevalent and that fundamental changes are required, listing a few of such they consider adequate in the form of broad descriptions in their largely static document, published by a scientific journal.[36][43][44]
15 January
Researchers in China report the successful transmission of entangled photons between drones, used as nodes for the development of mobile quantum networks or flexible network extensions, marking the first work in which entangled particles were sent between two moving devices.[45][46]
Scientists from U.S. federal medical agencies report that gut infections increase its microbiota'sresistance to subsequent infections and that this is associated with taurine, whose exogenous supply can induce this microbiota alteration.[47][48]
A study described as the "first long-term assessment of global bee decline", which analyzed GBIF-data of over a century, finds that the number of bee species declined steeply after the 1990s, shrinking by a quarter in 2006–2015 compared to before 1990.[54][55]
Astronomers report the discovery of TOI-178, a rare system of six exoplanets locked in a complex chain of Laplace orbital resonances and variations in the densities that are hard to explain.[59][60][61]
Australian scientists develop a new cryogenic computer system called Gooseberry, which has potential for scaling up quantum computers from dozens to thousands of qubits.[62][63][64]
26 January – A study suggests that operating air purifiers or air ventilation systems in confined spaces during their occupancy by multiple people leads to increased airborne virus transmission due to air circulation effects.[65][66]
27 January
Researchers report a way to manufacture transparent wood, whose qualities exceed those made with the main process used earlier, that requires substantially less amounts of chemicals and energy – solar-assisted chemical brushing.[67][68][69]
Scientists report that shark and ray populations have fallen by 71% since 1970 as a result of human actions, primarily overfishing.[70][71]
Researchers report the development of a highly efficient single-photon source for quantum IT with a system of gated quantum dots in a tunable microcavity which captures photons released from these excited "artificial atoms".[73]
February
Science Summary for this section (February)
2 February
2 February: Effectiveness of Sputnik-V vaccine is shown to be 92%.COVID-19 pandemic: Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is shown to be 92% effective against COVID-19, according to late stage trial results published in The Lancet.[74][75]
COVID-19 pandemic: Medical scientists in the United Kingdom report the detection of E484K (in 11 out of 214,000 samples), a mutation of the U.K. coronavirus variant that may compromise current vaccine effectiveness.[76][77]
A new theory aims to explain ʻOumuamua's peculiarities naturally and estimates, if true, ~4% of astronomical bodies in the interstellar medium to be N2 ice fragments.[82][83]
A study identifies genes for face shape and, for the first time, finds that a version of a gene – which was possibly selected for due to adaption to cold climate via fat distribution – is associated with a facial feature, lip thickness, and introgressed from ancient humans – Denisovans – into modern humans, Native Americans.[84][85][86]
8 February – Scientists report an updated status of studies considering the possible detection of lifeforms on Venus (via of phosphine) and Mars (via methane).[88]
9 February
The UAE's Hope spacecraft becomes the first Arabian mission to successfully enter orbit around Mars.[89]
A study using a high spatial resolution model and an updated concentration-response function finds that 10.2million global excess deaths in 2012 and 8.7million in 2018 – or a fifth[dubious–discuss] – were due to air pollution generated by fossil fuel combustion, significantly higher than earlier estimates and with spatially subdivided mortality impacts.[90][91]
9 February: Updated probabilistic forecast of CO2 emissions, based on data to 2015 and the method of Raftery et al.[92]A study concludes that the rates of emissions reductions need to increase by 80% beyond NDCs to meet the 2°C upper target range of the Paris Agreement, that the probabilities of major emitters meeting their NDCs without such an increase is very low, estimating that with current trends the probability of staying below 2°C of warming is 5% and if NDCs were met and continued post-2030 by all signatory systems 26%.[93][92]
The Chinese Tianwen-1 spacecraft successfully enters orbit around Mars.[97]
A journal-accepted preprint suggests observational data for a planet-mass object "Planet 9" at the outer Solar system is not significant and could be selection bias.[98][99][100]
Scientists deduce in a review that Homo sapiens does not have a single origin in terms of ancestor birthplaces being limited to a small geographic region and that current knowledge about long, continuous and complex – e.g. often non-singular, parallel, nonsimultaneous and/or gradual – emergences of characteristics is consistent with a range of evolutionary histories.[101][102]
Researchers report the development of a wearable thermoelectric generator with characteristics that make it a candidate for devices continuously harvesting body-heat energy and solar energy with applications such as powering wearable electronics.[103][104]
18 February: NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars.
Researchers report that brain organoids created with stem cells into which they reintroduced the archaic gene variant NOVA1 present in Neanderthals and Denisovans via CRISPR-Cas9 shows that it has a major impact on neurodevelopment and that such genetic mutations during the evolution of the human brain underlie traits that separate modern humans from extinct Homo species.[107][108] A subsequent study failed to replicate the differences in organoid morphology between the modern human and the archaic NOVA1 variant,[109] consistent with suspected unwanted side effects of CRISPR editing in the original study.[110][111]
15 February
Scientists report that theimpactor that led to the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was a fragment from a disrupted comet, rather than an asteroid which has long been the leading candidate among scientists.[112][113]
Teams of cognitive scientists report having established real-time communication with people undergoing a lucid dream and show that they were able to comprehend questions and use working memory.[125][126]
A scientific review produced by the i.a. NASA-sponsored online workshopTechnoClimes 2020 about mission concepts for the search of technosignatures is published. They classify signatures based on a metric about the distance of humanity to the capacity of developing the signature's required technology, associated methods of detection and ancillary benefits of their search. The study's conclusions include robust rationales for searching artifacts within the Solar System.[139][138]
2 March
Scientists report substantially more precise and regionally subdivided end times of the Acheulean, finding that it persisted long after the diffusion of Middle Palaeolithic technologies in multiple continental regions and ended over 100,000 years apart.[140][141]
A study of data on half a million U.K. citizens shows associations between meat intake with risks of some of 25 common conditions, including ischaemic heart disease and diabetes, as well as a lower risk of iron deficiency anaemia.[142][143] A study published on 31 March finds higher intake of processed meat was associated with "a higher risk of mortality and major CVD".[144][145]
Astronomers report the discovery of a quasar known as P172+18, the most distant source of radio emissions known to date, some 13billion light years away.[156]
Scientists propose storing DNA and other biological reproductive structures in a "lunar ark" on the Moon of all 6.7million species of plants, animals and fungi known on Earth – to help assure their survivability over the years.[157][158]
9 March: Erik Lentz describes a way warp drives sourced from known and familiar purely positive energy could exist.[165]
9 March
Physicists report that according to their theoretical model traversable microscopic wormholes may be possible and not require any exotic matter.[166][167] Another study published on the same day finds that humanly traversable wormholes may be possible if reality can broadly be described by the Randall–Sundrum model 2, which is a brane-based theory consistent with string theory.[168][169]
A physicist describes a way warp drives sourced from known and familiar purely positive energy could exist – warp bubbles based on superluminal self-reinforcing "soliton" waves. It may allow for up to Faster-than-light speed travel, transfers and communication with the large energy requirements possibly being reducible.[165][170][171][172]
COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort study of patients matched by similarity finds that the probability of increased mortality from VOC-202012/01 is high, increasing from 0.25 to 0.41% in the low-risk group of the database without controlling for U.K. vaccination campaign effects.[177][178] A study published on 15 March estimates the strain's mortality-risk to be ~61% (42–82%) higher than that of pre-existing variants.[179][180]
An analysis of the leaked and allegedly manipulated data about COVID-19 vaccines indicates concerns over percentage of intact mRNA in early commercial batches of mRNA vaccines, possibly reflecting a lack of certainty that relates to their efficacy at the time.[181][182]
A new microscopy technique using a hyperbolic metamaterial is shown to boost imaging resolutions, from 200 nanometres down to 40 nanometres.[183][184]
17 March – A study finds that an optimized globally coordinated marine conservation could be "nearly twice as efficient as uncoordinated, national-level" planning and estimates that bottom trawling releases as much CO2-emissions as pre-COVID-19 aviation.[192][193][194]
24 March: A view of the M87* supermassive black hole in polarised light
19 March
NASA reports, based on measurements of over 500 Marsquakes by the InSight lander on the planet Mars, that the core of Mars is between 1,810 and 1,860km (1,120 and 1,160mi), about half the size of the core of Earth, and significantly smaller – suggesting a core of lighter elements – than thought earlier.[197][198]
22 March – Astronomers report, for the first time, that the area producing pulses of a repeating fast radio burst (FRB), particularly FRB 180916, is about 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) in scale, based on studies at extremely short timescales.[200][201]
23 March
News media announces the public release, for the first time, of a comprehensive report of UFO events accumulated by the United States over the years.[202]
COVID-19 pandemic: A study finds that the snapshot mass-testing for COVID-19 of ~80% of Slovakia's population during a weekend at the end of October 2020 was highly efficacious, decreasing observed prevalence by 58% within one week and 70% compared to a hypothetical scenario of no snapshot-mass-testing.[203][204]
26 March – A collision between the asteroid 99942 Apophis and Earth is ruled out, for at least the next hundred years, based on new observations by NASA.[208]
30 March – Scientists report evidence of subglacial sediment stored since 1966 that indicates that Greenland was ice-free and vegetated at least once within the last million years.[216][217]
31 March
The first high-bandwidth, wireless brain-computer interface is demonstrated, with 200 electrodes providing 48 megabits per second (Mbit/s) of neural signals.[218][219]
.jpg)
.jpg)
_relative_to_baseline_-_fcosc-01-615419-g001.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
