Maths solution tops science class (BBC/Science) {Top Ten Discoveries of 2006}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

A solution to one of the most difficult problems in mathematics was the most important advance of 2006, according to the prestigious journal Science.

Science magazine's breakthroughs of 2006

* 1. The Poincare Conjecture. Reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman apparently solved the venerable mathematical problem.
* 2. Digging out fossil DNA. Researchers used new techniques to sequence more than one million bases of nuclear DNA from a Neanderthal.
* 3. Shrinking Ice. Glaciologists discovered that the world's two great ice sheets were indeed losing water to the oceans - at an accelerating pace.
* 4. From sea to land. Details emerged of a 375-million-year-old fish that fills an evolutionary gap between sea creatures and land animals.
* 5. The Ultimate Camouflage. A British-American team built a "metamaterials" cloaking device, that rendered an object invisible to microwaves.
* 6. Ray of Hope. Clinical trials show the drug ranizumab improved the vision of about one-third of patients with an age-related condition that causes degeneration in vision.
* 7. The road to speciation. Studies on the fruit fly and on butterflies aided our understanding of how species arise.
* 8. Beyond the light barrier. New microscopy techniques allowed biologists to get a clearer view of the fine structure of cells and proteins.
* 9. The Persistence of Memory. Neuroscientists provided insights into how the brain records new memories.
* 10. Small molecules. Researchers reported a new class of small RNA molecules that shut down gene expression.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6201373.stm

Eight of the ten have active links to BBC reports.