Scientific achievements of 2018 BRIGHTEST OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE JULY: Astronomers using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) system of 10 radio telescopes discover the brightest object in our universe. The quasar, named P352-15, is 13 billion light-years away from Earth and started when the cosmos was less than one billion years old – just seven percent of its age today. Quasars are galaxies that orbit supermassive black holes. An accretion disk of superheated gas, swirling at massive speeds, generates jets of electromagnetic radiation – X-rays, optical, infrared and radio Jet Singularity Centre of black hole Event horizon Matter and energy cannot escape Accretion disc -------------------------- WARM-BLOODED FISH DISCOVERED MARCH: A researcher from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovers that the common opah (Lampris guttatus) is warm-blooded. The aptitude to internally generate heat boosts the predator’s abilities in cold deep waters. Previously, scientists believed that birds and mammals were the only vertebrates with warm hearts -------------------------- ANCIENT STEROIDS REVEAL EARLIEST ANIMAL SEPTEMBER: Scientists from the Australian National University, Russia and Germany find cholesteroid molecules in an ancient fossil. The steroids reveal that the earliest animal in the geological record lived on Earth 558 million years ago. Called Dickinsonia, the sea creature grew up to 1.4 metres wide and was part of the Ediacaran fauna that lived 20 million years before the Cambrian Explosion of animal life -------------------------- WEARABLE DIABETES SELF-CARE DEVICE MARCH: Researchers at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands develop a wearable biosensor which measures beat-to-beat variation in heart rate to detect hypoglycemia – low blood sugar – in type 1 diabetes. Wireless technology transmits heart rate data from a commercially available biosensor to a mobile device. The researchers detected 70 percent of low blood sugar events, using an algorithm they developed themselves. When untreated, severe hypoglycemia can lead to seizures, loss of consciousness or even death -------------------------- ANCIENT HUMAN HYBRID AUGUST: Paleogeneticists of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, discover that a woman who died 90,000 years ago was parented by two different species of huma According to genome analysis of a bone found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Russia, the woman was half Neanderthal, half Denisovan. The finding is the most direct evidence yet that sexual encounters among different ancient human species were commonplace -------------------------- DNA NANOBOTS* KILL CANCER CELLS FEBRUARY: Researchers from Arizona State University and China’s National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology inject tiny, nanometre-sized robots made from folded sheets of DNA into the bloodstream of mice. The bots target blood vessels around cancerous tumours and inject them with blood-clotting drugs to cut off their blood supply Thrombin Blood-clotting enzyme DNA sheet Aptamers DNA molecules that target protein found in high amounts on surface of tumour cells DNA sheetis folded into hollow tube carrying thrombin Cancer cells Blood vessels supplying tumour Fibrin When bot comes into contact with tumour, tube automatically opens to deliver thrombin, which produces fibrin to block blood supply *A nanobot device ranges in size between 0.1-10 micrometres – a micrometre is one-millionth of a metre, the size of a red blood cell -------------------------- Sources: Eurekalert, Science, Nature, Cio Bulletin.com. Pictures: Dr Mike Baxter, University of California/Riverside, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, NOAA Fisheries/Southwest Fisheries Science Center, VitalConnect © GRAPHIC NEWS