Top 5 Scientific Discoveries of 2018
To ring in the new year, I’ve decided to recount some of my favourite scientific discoveries and innovations from last year. Let’s hope 2019 has many more brilliant discoveries!
5) Real Meat Grown in a Lab: A Dutch company called Meatable has successfully grown actual meat in one of their labs, completely cruelty free. Other labs have been able to grow meat before using something called fetal bovine serum, but the only way to get it is after slaughtering cows, which takes away the purpose of growing your own meat. Meatable, however, uses stem cells from bovine umbilical cords, which would be thrown out anyways. Not only is this a less wasteful option, it also only takes 3 weeks to grow the meat, whereas it generally takes 3 years for a cow to be ready for slaughtering.
4) Growing Plants in Antarctica: In early April of 2018, Germany’s aerospace centre announced that they had successfully grown 8 pounds of assorted lettuce, 18 cucumbers, and 70 radishes. The veggies were grown in a small greenhouse in Antarctica, using specially designed LED lights and a liquid nutrient solution instead of soil. This greenhouse is important, because it shows that we can grow food in very harsh conditions, like on the ISS or maybe even on Mars.
3) Golden State Killer Caught: After 44 years of investigating, the Golden State Killer was arrested in Sacramento California. Paul Holes, a DNA expert, traced DNA evidence from the killer back to the early 1800’s, when his great-great-great grandparents were alive. Holes and his team created about 25 family trees, before being led to Joseph DeAngelo. They tested an item that was thrown away by DeAngelo, and found it to be a perfect match with evidence from the killer.
2) Tiny, Cancer-Fighting Robots: In 2018, scientists developed a very small (1000 times smaller than a human hair) robot that can suffocate a cancerous tumour. The robot enters the body through intravenous (IV) injection and releases an enzyme called thrombin once it senses the tumour nearby. The thrombin then creates a blood clot around the tumour and suffocates it. These machines have been tested on skin, breast, ovary, and lung cancers in pigs and mice, but haven’t yet been tested on humans.
1) The World's Oldest Cheese: After 3200 years of sitting in an Egyptian tomb, the world’s oldest cheese was unearthed in July of 2018. Scientists determined that the cheese was made from both cow and sheep or goat milk. The cheese was found with traces of bacteria from an infectious disease called brucellosis, making it the oldest evidence of the disease. This discovery could just brie the greatest moment of 2018. I hope that wasn’t too cheesy for you.
-Grace Tunski, The Victoria Voice School Newspaper
