January 3, 2022: From the earliest surgery to the largest fish school to the closest Black Hole. 2022 will be remembered as the year encrusted with wonderful discoveries that will benefit the entire world for almost a century to come. Keep reading to know more!
New scientific records are established every year, and 2022 witnessed even bigger observations made by scientists all over the world. From the largest flock of fish to the closest blackhole, let us revisit some of the most notable scientific discoveries from 2022.
Scientists discover lost ‘supermountains’ even longer than the Himalayas
Some mountain ranges, even longer than the Himalayas, form an essential part of the history of the Earth's formation. The supermountains have been studied by researchers throughout Earth’s history. Extending up to 8000 km across, these supermountains are four times longer than the Himalayan ranges, which stretch up to 2,300 km. “It's not just the height of the supermountains today. If you can imagine the 2,400 km long Himalayas repeated three or four times, you get an idea of the scale,” said Ziyi Zhu, a PhD student at the Australian National University.
Earliest surgery
- Researchers investigated the skeleton of a person who lived 31,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Borneo.
- After concluding their study, they declared the first non-surgical operation to be a leg amputation.
- The individual had probably survived for several years after the procedure was completed, and this was suggested by traces of removal of the lower left leg of the healed bone.
- This pushes the origin of surgical procedures by almost 20,000 years.
Picture credit: Credit: Tim Maloney.
The largest galaxy ever discovered!
Astronomers have made one of the most baffling discoveries of space study ever, after landing on the largest galaxy so far, with zero clues about how it got so big. The Alcyoneus galaxy is 16.3 million light years wide, with a diameter around 160 times bigger than the Milky Way. IC 1101 was the largest discovered galaxy until recently, which was 3.9 million light years wide. Alcyoneus is four times the size of IC 1101 as well.
The astronomers also believe that figuring out what caused Alcyeoneus to stretch this gigantically will also be beneficial in deciphering how galaxies grow in general. If some specific large scale environments can cause giant radio galaxies to grow this immensely, then other large radio galaxies might as well reside within them.
Astronomers reveal new mysteries about Pluto, the dwarf planet
Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006, since it did not meet the criteria set by the International Astronomical Unit (IAU) to earn the status of a full-sized planet. Since then, several experiments and studies have been conducted on the dwarf planet to make new intriguing revelations.
The most recent study was conducted by a group of researchers, hailing from India, France and Brazil. There were Indian experts from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Uttarakhand, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram.
Click on the article to know about the observations:
Cave explorers discover ancient forest hiding under sinkhole in China
Cave explorers in China have unearthed a forest in the Guangxi region, hiding and flourishing under a massive sinkhole extending up to 630 feet deep and spanning more than 176 million cubic feet. The forest is filled with trees ranging up to 130 metres in height. This forest could house unique species and organisms that have never been seen or reported by scientists before!
According to the Guangxi Daily newspaper, the expedition team found a large piece of wild plantain and a unique square bamboo at the bottom of the cave. They believe the underground river’s path has been diverted, since there was no sign of a connection that could run through the cave.
Largest fish colony
An icefish congregate as big as Orlando was discovered deep off the coast of Antarctica in a huge breeding colony.
Around 60 million nests of Neopagetopsis ionah or Jonah’s icefish flocked around 240 km² of seafloor.
Before this discovery, marine biologists believed that nest-building fish species could gather in only around hundreds.
The area had access to unusually warm water along with abundant supplies of food for the fish flocks, which could have led to the development of such an exceptionally large colony.
Closest black hole
- Thanks to the Gaia spacecraft, astronomers discovered a black hole residing just over 1,560 light-years away from Earth.
- Gaia is a space observatory operated and funded by the European Space Agency, which was launched in 2013 and will be operational until 2025.
- The Gaia BH1 has hence become the closest blackhole discovered so far, taking the previous record down by almost 2 times.
- This is not surprising to the scientists at all, since understandably around a hundred million black holes are expected to exist in the Milky Way itself.
- However, since most of them are invisible, they are hard to spot.
- Gaia has mapped almost one billion stars, and has already resumed operations to release its next batch of information in a few years time, which might even bring up closer black holes.
Zooming towards the black hole Gaia BH1. Background: region of the Milky Way galaxy; Panel 1: an image of the star… [more]
© T. Müller (MPIA), PanSTARRS DR1 (K. C. Chambers et al. 2016), ESA/Gaia/DPAC (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Tyrannosaurus had three species, not just ‘rex’
The most popular dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex or T-Rex, seems to have competition.
So far, Tyrannosaurus rex was the only discovered species of the genus. The first recognised sample was described in 1905. Based on thigh-bone and tooth evidence collected from some fossils, scientists are suggesting that there could have been three species under this genus. The research was conducted by a team of three scientists, including Baltimore-based independent palaeontologist and paleoartist, Gregory Paul. According to Paul, the two additional species were Tyrannosaurus imperator, meaning tyrant lizard emperor, and Tyrannosaurus regina, meaning tyrant lizard queen.
Read the complete article by clicking ion the link on the right.
Microplastics found in blood for the first time ever
A study published in the Environment International journal in March end studied 22 blood samples of healthy individuals. To a yet another shocking revelation, scientists have discovered microplastics for the first time ever, in almost 80% of these samples, leading to a red sky in the morning situation as these tiniest pieces of ubiquitous particles have finally made it well inside the human body. The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development has funded the study, along with a UK-based group that fights to reduce plastic pollution, Common Seas.
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that range in size from 5mm in diameter to 1 micrometer, often too small to be visible to the naked eye.
Most of these plastic samples are trace elements of PET, or Polyethylene Terephthalate.
Read the details by clicking on the NewzPepper article on the left
NASA’s Perseverance records the first ever Martian sound
Interplanetary probes and expeditions have been capturing and sending thousands of beautiful images of the Red planet our way, for the last 50 years. But now, for the first time ever NASA's perseverance mission has recorded actual Martian sounds!
Five hours of recordings of the acoustic environment have been acquired through this mission. These sound waves have been analysed to study the turbulence of the Martian atmosphere, and at a scale almost a 1000 times smaller than anything previously known. This will eventually enhance our knowledge of the atmosphere of the Red Planet, and also help us better equip our future missions using more capable microphones on robots.
Learn more by clicking on the NewzPepper article link on the right
Ruins of ancient Zeus temple discovered in Sinai
Egyptian archaeologists excavated the ruins of an ancient Zeus temple in the Sinai Peninsula around the Tell el-Farma archaeological site, according to a statement by the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry. Tell el-Farma, popularly known by its ancient name Pelusium.
According to the ministry, when French Egyptologist Jean Clédat found ancient Greek inscriptions around this area in the early 1900s, although the existence of the Zeus-Kasios temple was proved, nobody had discovered the ruins yet. Zeus was celebrated as the God of the Sky according to ancient Greek mythology, and Mount Kasios in Syria was where he once worshipped. Hence, Zeus-Kasios is an amalgamation of the two.
Hubble spots the farthest star ever seen
The newly detected star has been named ‘Earendel’ which means “morning star” in old English and scientists estimated it to be at least 50 times the mass of our sun. Scientists also said that this star existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth (7 percent of its current age), making it one of the oldest stars that currently exist. Earendel is 12.9 billion lightyears away from the Earth, meaning that it takes light 12.9 years to reach the Earth from the star.
The previous star to hold the record of being the farthest star ever seen was also detected by Hubble in 2018. This one existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old or 30 percent of its current age.
Biggest single-celled bacterium
- Bacteria are microscopic organisms, and can be both harmful and advantageous for humankind.
- Thiomargarita magnifica discovered in 2022 is almost a centimetre long.
- This newfound bacteria is visible even to the naked die.
- It mostly thrives in the mangrove forests of Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.
- The bacteria's length averages about 50 times longer than other species of big bacteria and about 5000 times larger than typical bacteria.
- Scientists have still not gotten to the root of its origin, or evolution of such species.
830 Million Year Old potentially alive organisms found in crystals
According to the paper published in Geology, the discovery proves that saline or salt-based deposits can be preserved for millions of years, and can be traced using optical methods, like a technique called ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) petrography. The optical measures are scientifically beneficial since they do not interfere with the composition of the crystals.
The organisms can thrive in these deposits, even if they are otherwise perceived to be dead. While some of the organic matter observed under the fluorescent light appeared to be decayed, some samples were ‘unaltered and specifically preserved’.
Scientists discover new giant water lily species
The plant has been growing abundantly in huge aquatic collections but was misidentified as another species. The study has been published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Biology.
The lily currently holds the record as the world's largest water lily with leaves growing more than 3 m or 10 feet in width. The discovery also proves the fact that there is still a lot to learn about water lilies.
Named after Bolivia, where the plant grows in a water basin in the Amazon river channel, the lily has been named as the Victoria boliviana. Water lilies already have two known giant species, Victoria amazonica and Victoria cruziana. These giant flowers were named after Queen Victoria and discovered in the 1800s.
Researchers find world’s largest plant in Australia
The plant breaks the record of the clonal colony of The Trembling Giant, or Pando, which is an enormous grove of quaking aspens covering over 43.6 hectares in the Fishlake National Forest, Utah. The Great Banyan (Ficus benghalensis) located in Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, Shibpur, Howrah, is the largest tree in India, covering over 1.41 hectares.
Although the ribbon weed cannot disperse its seeds, it managed to survive without this crucial adaptation, mostly through polyploidy, that is, acceptance of 100% genomes from parent-plants, instead of receiving half and half from both. This is why the plant has twice the number of chromosomes than other plants of the same variety.
Scientists discover over 48 new species deep within the Pacific Ocean.
The team using the vehicle extracted specimens to the surface for detailed analysis of the organism and to understand the marine environment in the region of the world that remains least explored. What surprised the team was that of the 55 specimens that had been recovered from the deep sea, 48 of them were new.
The discovery was made in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), in the Central Pacific, which covers nearly five million square kilometers of the area between Hawaii and Mexico.
Largest dinosaur remains found in Europe’s Portuguese garden
In August, a few Spanish and Portuguese palaeontologists had started to uncover the vertebrae and ribs of what could be a brachiosaurid sauropod. Most of the ribs of the find have maintained their original anatomical position, that too in all their entirety, which is highly unusual.
Since the skeleton was found in an unnaturally intact position, researchers are hopeful that they might discover more parts of the same dinosaur upon further excavation.
The skeleton should be about 150 million years old. This proves that the Pombal region is a hotspot of important fossil remains, especially of the late Jurassic vertebrates. Finds like these from the last few decades have helped in the discovery of a large range of materials, and also shaped the knowledge of the continental animals that roamed around the Iberian Peninsula about 145 million years ago.
World’s oldest DNA exposes a 2 million-year-old lost world!
It was discovered in a cold desert of northern Greenland. Greenland used to be even greener before, and harboured animals like reindeers and extinct elephants, among others. It was covered with thick forests, filled with big and small plants!
The ancient DNA exposed the existence of around 102 species, of which, 39 plants are almost extinct in Greenland. Greenland, earlier, used to be 11 to 17°C warmer than what it is today, which allowed the growth of such a diverse forest environment.
