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Allah's creations on earth are miraculous and present man with an unlimited challenge of discovery. As we contemplate the top scientific discoveries of the year 2001, we can say "Subhan Allah" and wonder, in awe, what discoveries Allah will unveil for us in the year 2002.
Molecular-scale circuitry - which could open the way for ultra-fast computers and disease-fighting micro-machines in your bloodstream - ranks at the top of the year's 10 biggest scientific achievements. This year's runners-up include the learning of how individual genes work; the decoding of the human genome; the appearance of anti-cancer drug "smart bombs"; the production of new super-conductors and condensed matters; and the growing consensus on the causes of climate change.
Molecular Electronic Circuits…the New Nano-World
Researchers created molecular-sized circuits and hooked some of them up with tiny transistors, wires and switches in order to carry out rudimentary signal processing. Some of the experimental devices were made atom-by-atom with deposits of gold and other materials, such as a type of carbon that forms itself into tiny wires. All of these devices were at a tiny scale - measured in nanometers. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter and it takes about a million of them to span a typical grain of sand. This scientific achievement may pave the way to a new fabrication facility in a post-silicon nano-world.
Although the possibilities are remarkable because the scale is thousands of times smaller than that embodied in the very best contemporary computer chip, researchers may face a long and difficult road in their development. Researchers, however, are already developing diagnostic nano-machines that could monitor blood chemistry and even administer drugs from the inside; ultra-fast & ultra-small circuitry that could eventually boost computing power to new heights; and molecular-scale quantum computers that could tackle problems far beyond our current capabilities.
The "Runners-up"
The remaining scientific achievements share equal honors as the top ten scientific achievements for 2001:
1. Controlling individual genes
Studies have found RNA - the single-stranded sister molecule of DNA and the biochemical link between DNA's information and protein formation - to be much more versatile than previously realized and have uncovered a way of switching on and off the operation of individual genes in a cell. Genes are the codes that control the way all living things grow and live. The potential for science, and medicine in particular, to learn how to control them individually is enormous, and the work could help uncover just what all those genes found by the human genome project actually do.
2. Genomes
The nearly completed sequence of the human gene structure was announced in 2000, but it was formally published in February 2001. In addition, scientists have sequenced the genes of more than 60 organisms, such as many bacteria, and are well under way on the mosquito, the puffer fish, rat, mouse, and Zebrafish - all of which are important research animals.
3. Anti-cancer Drugs
The introduction of a new breed of cancer-fighting drugs, "smart bombs" targeted to the precise biochemical defects that cause certain cancers.
4. Fixing Damaged Nerves in Humans
Researchers investigating neurons took a step closer towards understanding how nerve cells link together to form a neutral communication network. The knowledge could help work out how to repair damaged adult nerves in humans.
5. New Forms of Condensed Matter
The Nobel Prize for physics went to the producers of the first Bose-Einstein condensates. Two teams in France managed to produce this new state of matter using helium for the first time. This new matter could lead the way to atom lasers and ultra-precise measurements.
6. Research on Global Warming
The declaration from the International Panel on Climate Change that "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" due to industrial activity.
7. Carbon Dioxide Research
New understanding of how trees and other vegetation sop up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Researchers concluded that plants absorbed about 1/3 of the carbon dioxide emitted from burning of fossil fuels and other sources in the United States. New analyses of how much climate-changing carbon dioxide is mopped up by the United States' "carbon sink", indicating that it may show signs of slowing down within the next century.
8. Solar Mysteries Solved
For 30 years, solar physicists have looked for so-called missing electron neutrinos, subatomic particles that were expected to steam from the nuclear fires of the sun. In June, the discovery at Canada's Sudbury Neutrino Observatory that solar neutrinos are converted into two other "flavors" of neutrinos after leaving the sun - which explains some previously puzzling observations.
9. New Super-Conductors
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Superconductivity materials, which offer no resistance to the flow of electricity, moved closer to room temperature. Zero resistance is possible with many materials, but only at temperature far below zero. Newly discovered exotic materials pushed the upper limit for super-conducting circuitry as high as minus 249 degrees Fahrenheit (117 degrees Kelvin), suggesting new possibilities for super-conducting electronics.
Sources:
- D'Agnese, Joseph. "The Year in Science." Discover. Vol. 22 No. 1, January 2001.
- Kennedy, Donald. "Breakthrough of the Year." Science. 294: 2443-2447, December 21, 2001.
- Kunzing, Robert. "2001 Year Of The Ocean." Discover. Vol. 23 No. 1, January 2002.
- Physicsweb. "Highlights of the Year." Physicsweb. December 2001. www.physicsweb.org/article/news/5/12/10
- Whitehouse, David. "Frozen Matter Wins Nobel." BBC. December.
- Wofsy, Steven. "Climate Changed: Enhanced…Where has All The Carbon Gone?" Science. 292:2316, 2001.
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