Sunshine to skulls: Top 5 global scientific breakthroughs of 2013

The fake heart
When the heart breaks down, it means the end of life for most because there are hardly any donors for the organ. But Carmat, a French company, has just announced the transplant of an artificial heart. At 900 grams, it is three times heavier than the natural human heart and it costs between €14 0,000 to 180,000 in Europe. The first such heart is working in a man in Paris.It mimics the human heart with power derived from lithium batteries. It also mimics heart muscle contractions and contains sensors that adapt the blood flow to the patient's moves. the sheer size of the artificial heart means it can fit in 86% of men but only around 20% of women. But Carmat says it could easily manufacture a smaller version to fit the smaller bodies of women as well as patients in India and China. In case you don’t have the stomach for this heart, another company Medtronic developed and implanted the world’s smallest pacemaker — without surgery. The tiny device is just 2.4 cm — an inch — long and inserted through a small incision in the thigh.
Solar energized
Making energy from sunshine is expensive and though costs of solar energy systems have dropped drastically in recent years, the search for a more efficient technology continues worldwide. The answer may be found in perovskite — a chemical having calcium and titanium. In October, scientists at Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University reported the first solar cell made of perovskite. Then, in November, the scientific journal Nature reported that it can lead to solar cells that convert over half of the energy in sunlight directly into electricity. That’s more than twice as efficient as conventional solar cells. Such high efficiency would cut in half the number of solar cells needed to produce a given amount of power. Besides reducing the cost of solar panels, this would greatly reduce installation costs. The work is still in the development stage and you may have to wait some time — but definitely, the new, cheap solar cell is around the corner.
Species puzzle
Who were our ancestors? Several dizzying discoveries this year continued to confound scientists by opening up completely new paths. Archeologists digging near Dmanisi town in Georgia found a 1.8 million year old fossil skull that indicated that what scientists thought were three different ancestors of humans could very well be a single species, Homo erectus. In the Altai mountains of Siberia, a dig at Denisova cave had earlier discovered a new human ancestor called Denisovans. A DNA analysis published this year showed that the Denisovans had interbred with another human ancestor Neanderthal, and with humans, and, with a third unknown human ancestor. And, just as the year was closing, news broke that a 1.42 million year old hand bone found in Kenya was human like. This pushed the evolution of the dexterous human hand — found in no other animal — back by half a million years. Another discovery that shook previous theories was that of the oldest human DNA from a leg bone found in Spain. Its DNA showed it was similar to the Denisovans — except that they were found 6,500 km away in Siberia.
Cornering cancer
Years of work have yielded fruit this year and it may change the future of this unconquered disease. This involves stimulating the body’s own immune defense system against cancer cells. The key, in one case, was a chemical which turned off T-cells, the free floating guard cells that attack foreign invaders. Cancerous cells can turn these guards off, rendering them ineffective against themselves. So, if the chemical itself could be neutralized, the T-cells would continue their natural role and finish off the ravaging cancer cells. A variant was to modify the T-cells so that they target the cancer cells. The journal Science has reported on some successful cases. These are very costly therapies and still being firmed up. But it appears as if a corner has been turned in the fight against cancer.
Neutrinos in the net
Near the South Pole, hundreds of metres below the frozen wastes, lies a bizarre observatory called the IceCube. This year it caught what it was looking for — Ernie and Bertie. The IceCube is looking for the mysterious weightless particles called neutrinos that can pass through the earth clean without a blip anywhere. What it caught was a bunch of 28 neutrinos, the most energetic of them were labeled after the two characters in Sesame Street. Nobody knows where they came from but given their high energy they must have come from very far off in the Universe. This could be the beginning of a new era where scientists observe particles rather than light to understand what’s going on in the Universe.