It’s no surprise that we continue to find and build great things. But the things we find and build can still surprise us. 2022 was another year full of advances in science and technology. It is too early to identify the most important developments of the year; science needs time to mature. But here are eight moments that were remarkable to me, to the experts in their respective fields, and even to those who were doing the work.
Our solar system is something of a minefield. Between the sun, the asteroid belt, and the planets and their rings and moons lie a handful of smaller rocks, some of which intersect with Earth. We’d like to avoid sharing the fate of the dinosaurs, so we’ve taken pains to spot potentially troublesome intruders; Currently, we are not aware of any asteroid larger than 140 meters in diameter that would pose a serious collision risk in the next century. But what we don’t know can still hurt us, and we must prepare for the unexpected.
Last year SpaceX launched a NASA mission, led by Johns Hopkins University, called DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test. As David W. Brown explains, in his step-by-step account of the mission, their target was a pair of unassuming asteroids, seven million miles away, called Didymos (measuring almost half a mile in diameter) and Dimorphos (a slightly larger). five hundred feet wide). At that time, Dimorphos orbited Didymos every eleven hours and fifty-five minutes. The DART spacecraft, whose launch mass exceeded half a ton, was not intended to destroy either object. But it could throw one or both bodies off course, a proof of concept for the idea that humanity could change the trajectory of an incoming asteroid, avoiding a collision with Earth.
Success was defined as a head-on collision with Dimorphos that would alter its orbital period by at least seventy-three seconds. On September 26, DART reached its target at approximately fourteen thousand miles per hour, reducing orbit in a full thirty-two minutes. (Ground-based observations measured the effect by tracking how often the two bodies eclipsed each other.) It could have been a shot heard around the solar system, if not for the deafening silence of space. Scientists are still analyzing data on the aftermath.
The New Yorker writers reflect on the ups and downs of the year.
In the 1998 film “Armageddon,” Bruce Willis’s character detonates a bomb on an Earth-bound asteroid, preventing the main event of the film. A quarter of a century later, we have the technology to accomplish a similar goal in a more elegant way. DART-like spaceships, combined with careful observation and early detection, now give us the ability to defend the planet we are otherwise doing so much to plunder.
Depression Reduced Magic Mushrooms
Many people who have taken psychedelics understand their healing powers. I am one of them: Twenty-seven years ago, I profitably recruited acid and ecstasy in my battle with depression. Due to longstanding laws restricting the recreational, therapeutic, and even scientific use of drugs, research is still catching up. But this year, the findings about the effectiveness of psilocybin, the magic of magic mushrooms, against depression have left even some scientists stunned.
Although antidepressants are often the first line of defense in the treatment of depression, they often do not provide relief. More than a quarter of a billion people worldwide deal with what is known as major depressive disorder, according to estimates, and some studies indicate that at least thirty percent of them deal with so-called treatment-resistant depression. . Last month, The New England Journal of Medicine published the results of the largest clinical trial ever conducted with psilocybin, involving 233 people with treatment-resistant depression. Each received only a single dose (one, ten, or twenty-five milligrams) under professional supervision. Three weeks later, those who had received the higher dose had significantly less depression than those in the lower dose group.
Another study, published in Nature Medicine, demonstrated the benefits of psilocybin over the antidepressant escitalopram (trade name Lexapro). Using neuroimaging, the researchers also explored some possible mechanisms for the treatment: They found that patients who received psilocybin experienced increased integration of activity across networks in their brains. Perhaps psilocybin, by increasing cognitive flexibility, allows people to escape thought ruts. Another study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, looked at patients with major depressive disorder who had received two psychedelic sessions. A full year later, 75% maintained at least a 50% reduction in their depression scores.
The authors of all three studies told me that they were surprised by the durability of the treatment. There is work to be done, but these findings suggest that some people may find a way out from under a previously unshakable disease.
In an era of global warming, we expect temperature records to be broken. But now they are breaking with surprising frequency and in surprising numbers. In July, the UK suffered a record heatwave: the previous high had been 101.7 degrees Fahrenheit, but at least forty-six weather stations reached or exceeded that temperature, the highest ever at 2.9 degrees. Of more than a hundred weather stations that had been collecting data for at least half a century, most broke through. One town overcame their hurdle with a cold 11.3 degree beer.
The UK was not alone. Other countries in Europe saw records collapse, with the continent as a whole experiencing the hottest average June to August. Huge forest fires spread across the entire continent. Meanwhile, India suffered from an apocalyptic heat wave this spring; several continents experienced drought; and China weathered its longest and most intense heat wave on record.
In August, an international team of eleven scientists published an analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled “Climate Endgame: Exploring Catastrophic Climate Change Scenarios.” They argue that the international goal of keeping temperature increases well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) has led research to focus on lower-level warming scenarios, leaving us unprepared for more drastic changes. The loss of stratocumulus cloud layers caused by carbon dioxide could warm the planet by an additional eight degrees Celsius by the end of the century. “Particularly worrisome is a ‘tip cascade,'” they write. Damage to the environment is likely to be non-linear, leading to unlikely outcomes that need to be analysed. The article notes that climate change could trigger or exacerbate blackouts, famines, pandemics, mass extinctions, nuclear wars. In short, we must expect the unexpected.
Brain cells in a plate played pong
A staple of science fiction (and philosophy) is the notion that you’re just a brain in a vat, connected to the real world via wires. Another is that you are just a simulated being in a virtual universe. An experiment reported this year in Neuron combined elements of both tropes. Layers of brain cells connected to a computer experienced a world consisting of a variant of the video game Pong and learned to play it.
