雖然上帝粒子發現和證實者將2013年諾貝爾物理獎取入囊中，但我們不妨回顧其他由重點科學雜誌總結而出的 2013年重大的科學突破，其中包括：腫瘤免疫學、腦神經學、遺傳學、太陽能、器官再造、疫苗、克隆技術、宇宙射線，並期望2014有更前瞻的進展！
看官們如覺得有漏萬之魚歡迎踴躍討論。
以下取自: http://www.businessinsider.com/sciences-2013-breakthroughs-of-the-year-2013-12#ixzz2pdouwrDe
The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs Of 2013
The editors of the journal Science have chosen cancer immunotherapy — using the body's immune system to attack tumors instead of targeting the tumor itself — as the biggest breakthrough of 2013.
"Cancer immunotherapy clinched the #1 spot because it's causing such a paradigm shift among researchers in how they tackle cancer," the journal's editorial team wrote in a statement.
The technique involves training immune cells to recognize the characteristics ofcancer cells, and then fight back. There's still a lot of work ahead since thetreatment has only worked for a few patients and some types of cancers so far,but the results from clinical trials offer hope for a new weapon againstcancer. Nine other groundbreaking achievements that were chosen from this year are detailed below.
Scientists discover the first real reason we need sleep Bystudying a newfound pathway in mice, scientists identified the first major mechanical reasonwe need to sleep: to clean the brain. When the brain is sleeping,channels between cells grow. This allows cerebrospinal fluid into the depths ofthe brain tissues to flush out toxic proteins that build up during the day,including the kind that are responsible for neurodegenerative diseases likeAlzheimer's. Xie,et. al, Science, 2013. When mice sleep, fluid-filled channels (pale blue) between neuronsexpand and flush out waste.
A gene-editing tool called CRISPRsoars in popularity CRISPR,which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, wasdiscovered in bacteria where it operates like an immune system against invadingviruses. The structure is made up of a series of repeated stretches broken upby short "spacer" sequences. The short sequences come from virusesthat infected the bacterial cell. Researchers use CRISPR as a gene-editing toolto "cut DNA at precise locations — and at several sites at once, ifdesired — so that they can test the effects of mutations inside a cell," Patricia Fitzpatrick explains inGenetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. This year, dozens ofteams of researchers have used the revolutionary technique to "manipulatethe genomes of various plant, animal and human cells," the editors ofScience write. K.SUTLIFF/ SCIENCE To homein on the right DNA, the Cas9 protein links up with guide RNA that has atarget-speci揻 sequence. Once attached, Cas9 has two active sites that cut theDNA in the right place.
Scientists Succeed In Growing A Variety Of Mini-Organs Miniorgans grown in the lab, called "organoids," provide scientists withnew ways to test drugs and examine diseases in a human context. This year,Austrian researchers grew mini human brains, three-dimensional blobs oftissue about the size of an apple seed. The tiny brains have no blood supply,but still provide a better biological model than, say, mice for researchers tounderstand how the brain develops and study disorders. Institutefor Molecular Biotechnology A cross-sectionof an entire organoid showing development of different brain regions. Researchers recognize the importance of microbes for our health Researchers are finally understanding that bacteria and other organisms that live in thehuman body can be good for us. The body hosts trillions of tiny organismscalled microbes. Some microbes, or "germs," cause diseases, but themajority of them are harmless and others even benefit our immune and digestivesystems, scientists have found. This year, gut microbes have been shown toinfluence anticancer therapies in humans and play a role in weight loss andprotection again allergies and asthma in studies of mice.
Perovskitecells show promise for high-efficiency, inexpensive solar power A new solar cell material calledperovskite showed great promise this year as a low-cost, moreefficient alternative to traditional silicon-based cells. Within four years ofdevelopment, perovskite cells reached efficiency levels that took more than adecade for technologies used today to reach. Researchers still have to find away to make perovskite as durable as silicon and prove that it doesn't containtoxic elements that would make it unsafe for use.
BoshuZhang, Wong Choon Lim Glenn & Mingzhen Liu A thin-film solar cell made of perovskite could soon replace expensivesilicon-based solar cells.
Researchers use structural biology to make a new vaccine For the first time scientists developed a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus(RSV), a common childhood virus, using a technique called structural biology.Efforts to create a vaccine against RSV had stalled using traditional methods —exposing the body to dead virus or a weak strain and letting it make a randomassortment of antibodies against it. Instead, researchers used a different tactic — they aimed to get the body to make aspecial antibody that makes some people resistant to the virus. They did so byanalyzing the structure of the RSV protein when it is bound to the antibody. Theythen made a mutated version of a RSV protein that was a slightly differentshape than normal, but the change in shape made the part that binds this killerantibody more visible. That means that body makes more of these killerantibodies to fight off the virus.
Scientistsmake human stem cells through cloning Researcherswere able to make embryonic stem cells by cloning human skincells, a feat that has been in the works for more than a decade. Since stemcells can turn into any tissue in the body — and in this case are an exactgenetic match to the cloned cell — the technique may one day be used to developreplacement tissues and organs to treat diseases. It also takes us one stepcloser to producing cloned babies. The cloning technique is essentially thesame one used to clone animals, including Dolly the sheep 17 years ago. Afteryears of failed attempts, scientists realized that adding a bit of caffeineenabled them to produce stems cells from cloned human embryos. The first step during SCNT is enucleation or removal of nucleargenetic material (chromosomal) from a human egg.
The CLARITY imaging technique makes it easier to see the brain CLARITY allows scientists to see through the entire intact brain without slicing it up,which was problematic because it severed connections between cells. "Studying intact systems with this sort of molecular resolution andglobal scope — to be able to see the fine detail and the big picture at the same time — has been a major unmet goal in biology, and a goal that CLARITYbegins to address," study leader Karl Deisseroth, a bioengineer and psychiatrist at Stanford University, said in a statement. KwanghunChung and Karl Deisseroth, Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Stanford University Adetailed glimpse of an intact mouse brain is seen using the CLARITY method.
Scientists found the source of cosmic rays Theorigin of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that speed through space and smashinto Earth's upper atmosphere, has eluded scientists since they were detected100 years ago. But this year, scientists found evidence that at least some cosmic rays come from exploding stars, orsupernovas. Supernova remnants act like an "expanding shell ofmatter," explains ScienceNow.Protons that interact with gas surrounding the supernova get accelerated toalmost the speed of light until they shoot off into space in all directions ascosmic rays.
Scientistsbelieve some cosmic rays come from supernova remnants, or exploding stars likethis one.
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