A number of significant scientific events occurred in 2016. The United Nations declared 2016 the International Year of
Pulses
In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the ...
.
Events
January
*1 January
**Researchers at
HRL Laboratories
HRL Laboratories (formerly Hughes Research Laboratories) is a research center in Malibu, California, established in 1960. Formerly the research arm of Hughes Aircraft, HRL is currently owned by General Motors Corporation and Boeing. The resear ...
in Malibu, California, develop an entirely new way to
3D print
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...
near-flawless
ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...
, including strongly heat-resistant varieties that were previously impossible.
**An article published in ''Science'' describes how human-machine
superintelligence
A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of problem-solving systems (e.g., superintelligent language ...
could solve the world's most dire problems.

*7 January
**Scientists report that,
about 800 million years ago, a
minor genetic change in a single
molecule
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bio ...
, called GK-PID, may have allowed
organism
In biology, an organism () is any life, living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy (biology), taxonomy into groups such as Multicellular o ...
s to go from a
single cell organism
A unicellular organism, also known as a single-celled organism, is an organism that consists of a single cell, unlike a multicellular organism that consists of multiple cells. Organisms fall into two general categories: prokaryotic organisms and ...
to
one of many cells.
**The discovery of the earliest known physical evidence of tea from the mausoleum of
Emperor Jing of Han
Emperor Jing of Han (Liu Qi (劉啟); 188 BC – 9 March 141 BC) was the sixth emperor of China, emperor of the Chinese Han dynasty from 157 to 141 BC. His reign saw the limiting of the power of the feudal kings/princes which resulted in the Re ...
in
Xi'an
Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...
is reported, indicating that tea from the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...
''
Camellia
''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are more than 220 described species, with some controvers ...
'' was drunk by
Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
emperors as early as the 2nd century BC.
**Astronomers identify
IDCS 1426 as the most distant massive
galaxy cluster
A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. They are the second-la ...
yet discovered, at 10 billion light years from Earth.
**Mathematicians, as part of the
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available software to search for Mersenne prime numbers.
GIMPS was founded in 1996 by George Woltman, who also wrote the Prime95 client an ...
, report the discovery of a new
prime number
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only way ...
: "2
74,207,281 − 1".
*11 January – Glycerol 3-phosphate phosphatase (G3PP), an enzyme that prevents sugar being stored as fat, is identified by scientists at the
University of Montreal
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...
Hospital Research Centre.
*13 January
**Man-made carbon emissions have delayed the next
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
by 50,000 years, according to researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
**
Water ice Water ice could refer to:
*Ice formed by water (as opposed to other substances)
*The alternate term for various similar frozen fruit-flavoured desserts:
**Italian ice primarily in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley
**Sorbet
Sorbet (), also c ...
is confirmed on the surface of
comet 67P
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are ...
.
**The world's first 13
TB solid state drive
A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data Persistence (computer science), persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the Computer ...
(SSD) is announced, doubling the previous record for a commercially available SSD.
*14 January – Astronomers report that
ASASSN-15lh
ASASSN-15lh (supernova designation SN 2015L) is an extremely luminous astronomical transient event discovered by the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN), with the appearance of a superluminous supernova event. It was first detec ...
, first observed in June 2015, is likely the brightest
supernova ever detected. Twice as luminous as the previous record holder, at peak detonation it was as bright as 570 billion Suns.
*16 January – Astronaut
Scott Kelly tweets a picture of the first flower ever grown in space, a
zinnia
''Zinnia'' is a genus of plants of the tribe Heliantheae within the family Asteraceae. They are native to scrub and dry grassland in an area stretching from the Southwestern United States to South America, with a centre of diversity in Mexico. ...
flower.
*17 January – The
Jason-3
Jason-3 is a satellite altimeter created by a partnership of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), and is an international cooperative m ...
Earth observation satellite
An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitorin ...
is launched.

*18 January
**Man-made heat entering the oceans has doubled since 1997, according to a study in the journal ''Nature Climate Change''.
**Light-activated
nanoparticles
A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is usually defined as a particle of matter that is between 1 and 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 10 ...
able to kill over 90% of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from the effects of antimicrobials. All classes of microbes can evolve resistance. Fungi evolve antifungal resistance. Viruses evolve antiviral resistance. P ...
are demonstrated at the
University of Colorado Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado s ...
.
**Researchers demonstrate a new class of small, thin electronic sensors that monitor temperature and pressure within the skull – crucial health parameters after a brain injury or surgery – then melt away when no longer needed. This eliminates the need for additional surgery to remove the monitors and reduces the risk of infection and hemorrhage.
*19 January
**A successful
head transplant
A head transplant is an experimental surgical operation involving the grafting of one organism's head onto the body of another. In many experiments, the recipient's head has not been removed, but in others it has been. Experimentation in animals ...
on a monkey by scientists in China is reported.
**
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
announces a new program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), which aims to greatly improve the bandwidth and quality of
neural interfaces, connecting up to a million neurons at a time.
*20 January
**Astronomers at the
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
present the strongest evidence yet that a
ninth planet
Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century and continued at the start of the 20th with Percival Lowell's ...
is present in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun every 15,000 years.
**
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditi ...
(NOAA) confirm that 2015 was the hottest year (since 1880) on record globally, shattering the previous record by the largest margin ever seen.
*23 January –
Lockheed Martin announces the "Segmented Planar Imaging Detector for Electro-optical Reconnaissance" (SPIDER), a new way of dramatically shrinking the size of
telescopes
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obser ...
, by using hundreds to thousands of tiny lenses. The diameter does not change, but the SPIDER system is thinner and does not need multiple mirrors.

*25 January
**Researchers at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...
announce a new handheld, pen-sized microscope that could identify cancer cells in doctors' offices and operating rooms.
**Researchers at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 coll ...
use real-time 3D videos of cellular movement to show how
cancer cell
Cancer cells are cells that divide continually, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood with abnormal cells. Cell division is a normal process used by the body for growth and repair. A parent cell divides to form two daughter cells, and these ...
s extend "cables" and grab other cells, leading to tumour growth. As little as five percent of cancerous cells are needed for tumour formation, they suggest.
**The first ever global
nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at seve ...
footprint, encompassing 188 countries, is released by the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...
.
**The
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...
announces that it will begin human trials of the Phoenix99, a fully implantable
bionic eye
A visual prosthesis, often referred to as a bionic eye, is an experimental visual device intended to restore functional vision in those with partial or total blindness. Many devices have been developed, usually modeled on the cochlear implant o ...
.
*27 January – Google announces a
breakthrough in artificial intelligence with a program able to beat the European champion of the board game ''
Go''.
*28 January
**Research into the nature of
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
by
Griffith University
Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asia ...
's Centre for Quantum Dynamics shows how an asymmetry for
time reversal might be responsible for making the universe move forward in time.
**Observations by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, suggest that
Smith's Cloud
Smith's Cloud is a high-velocity cloud of hydrogen gas located in the constellation Aquila at Galactic coordinates ''l'' = 39°, ''b'' = −13°. The cloud was discovered in 1963 by Gail Bieger, ''née'' Smith, who was an astro ...
did not originate from
intergalactic space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, predo ...
, but was actually launched out of our own galaxy around 70 million years ago.
*29 January
**Researchers demonstrate that
graphene
Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. can be successfully interfaced with
neurons
A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. ...
, while maintaining the integrity of these vital nerve cells. It is believed this could lead to much improved
brain implants
Brain implants, often referred to as neural implants, are technological devices that connect directly to a biological subject's brain – usually placed on the surface of the brain, or attached to the brain's cortex. A common purpose of modern bra ...
for restoring sensory functions.
**
Proton beam therapy
In medicine, proton therapy, or proton radiotherapy, is a type of particle therapy that uses a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue, most often to treat cancer. The chief advantage of proton therapy over other types of external beam r ...
for cancer is as effective as other treatments and causes fewer side effects in children than conventional radiotherapy, according to research published by ''The Lancet''.
**Research by
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
provides further evidence that
the Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
was formed by a violent, head-on
collision
In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...
between the early Earth and a “planetary embryo” called
Theia
In Greek mythology, Theia (; grc, Θεία, Theía, divine, also rendered Thea or Thia), also called Euryphaessa ( grc, Εὐρυφάεσσα) "wide-shining", is one of the twelve Titans, the children of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god ...
, roughly 100 million years after the Earth formed.
February
*1 February – Scientists in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
are given the go-ahead by regulators to genetically modify
human embryos
An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm c ...
by using
CRISPR-Cas9
Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9, formerly called Cas5, Csn1, or Csx12) is a 160 kilodalton protein which plays a vital role in the immunological defense of certain bacteria against DNA viruses and plasmids, and is heavily utilized in geneti ...
and related techniques.
*2 February – The smallest ever
lattice
Lattice may refer to:
Arts and design
* Latticework, an ornamental criss-crossed framework, an arrangement of crossing laths or other thin strips of material
* Lattice (music), an organized grid model of pitch ratios
* Lattice (pastry), an ornam ...
structure is created by the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), with glassy carbon struts and braces less than 200 nm in diameter.
*3 February – Following a helium plasma test in December 2015, the first hydrogen test is successfully conducted at the
Wendelstein 7-X
The Wendelstein 7-X (abbreviated W7-X) reactor is an experimental stellarator built in Greifswald, Germany, by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), and completed in October 2015.[Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...]
.

*4 February – The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that the
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2016 was the lowest in the satellite record.
*9 February – A breakthrough in
cryopreservation
Cryo-preservation or cryo-conservation is a process where organisms, organelles, cells, tissues, extracellular matrix, organs, or any other biological constructs susceptible to damage caused by unregulated chemical kinetics are preserved by coo ...
is announced, with a rabbit's whole brain shown to have a well-preserved ultrastructure, including cell membranes, synapses, and intracellular structures such as synaptic vesicles.
*11 February – Scientists at the
LIGO
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large o ...
,
Virgo
Virgo may refer to:
* Virgo (astrology), the sixth astrological sign of the zodiac
* Virgo (constellation), a constellation
* Virgo Cluster, a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo
* Virgo Stellar Stream, remains of a dwarf galaxy
*Virgo ...
and
GEO600
GEO600 is a gravitational wave detector located near Sarstedt, a town 20 km to the south of Hanover, Germany. It is designed and operated by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Opti ...
announce the
first direct detection of a
gravitational wave
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in ...
predicted by the
general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. ...
theory of
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
.
*12 February – Scientists publish a list of the world's 2,500 rarest
mineral
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ...
s in the journal ''American Mineralogist''.
*15 February
**The
University of Southampton
, mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour
, type = Public research university
, established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...
announces a major step forward in creating "5D" data storage that can survive for billions of years.
**Scientists report "unprecedented" success using T-cells to treat cancer. In one trial, 94 percent of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia saw their symptoms disappear entirely.
*16 February
**
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ver ...
detects
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
and
helium
Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...
(and suggestions of
hydrogen cyanide
Hydrogen cyanide, sometimes called prussic acid, is a chemical compound with the formula HCN and structure . It is a colorless, extremely poisonous, and flammable liquid that boils slightly above room temperature, at . HCN is produced on a ...
), but no
water vapor
(99.9839 °C)
, -
, Boiling point
,
, -
, specific gas constant
, 461.5 J/( kg·K)
, -
, Heat of vaporization
, 2.27 MJ/kg
, -
, Heat capacity
, 1.864 kJ/(kg·K)
Water vapor, water vapour or aqueous vapor is the gaseous p ...
, in the
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. ...
of
55 Cancri e
55 Cancri e (abbreviated 55 Cnc e, formally named Janssen and nicknamed "Hell on Earth") is an exoplanet in the orbit of its Sun-like host star 55 Cancri A. The mass of the exoplanet is about 8.63 Earth masses and its diameter is about twic ...
, the first time the atmosphere of a
super-earth
A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively.
The term "super-Earth" refers only to ...
exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
has been analyzed successfully.
**A study in ''
Cryobiology
Cryobiology is the branch of biology that studies the effects of low temperatures on living things within Earth's cryosphere or in science. The word cryobiology is derived from the Greek words κρῧος ryos "cold", βίος ios "life", and λ� ...
'' describes how microscopic
tardigrade
Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserbär ...
s were successfully revived, and reproduced, after being frozen for over 30 years.
*17 February – Launch of
Hitomi, also known as Astro-H, a spacecraft to study high-energetic processes and
dark matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...
in the universe.
*19 February – Researchers report that
naked mole rat
The naked mole-rat (''Heterocephalus glaber''), also known as the sand puppy, is a burrowing rodent native to the Horn of Africa and parts of Kenya, notably in Somali regions. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in the ...
s, thought immune to
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...
, can contract the disease after all.

*23 February –
Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Boston Dynamics has been owned by the Hyundai Motor Gro ...
reveals the latest version of its "Atlas" humanoid robot, featuring highly dynamic movements and reactions in both indoor and outdoor environments.
*24 February –
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer arises when cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a mass. These cancerous cells have the ability to invade other parts of the body. A number of types of panc ...
is found to have four separate sub-types, each with a different cause and requiring a different treatment.
*26 February – A
solar cell
A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.[soap bubble
A soap bubble is an extremely thin film of soap or detergent and water enclosing air that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few seconds before bursting, either on their own or on contact w ...]
is demonstrated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
March
*March – Connection between uncarboxylated
osteocalcin
Osteocalcin, also known as bone gamma-carboxyglutamic acid-containing protein (BGLAP), is a small (49-amino-acid) noncollagenous protein hormone found in bone and dentin, first identified as a calcium-binding protein.
Because osteocalcin has g ...
and human metabolism identified by
Gérard Karsenty Gérard Karsenty is a professor and chair of the Genetics and Development Department at the Columbia University Medical Center
where he studies the endocrinology of bone.
Professor Karsenty made the key discovery that bones produce endocrine hormon ...
.
*1 March – Astronauts
Scott Kelly and
Mikhail Korniyenko
Mikhail Borisovich Kornienko (Михаил Борисович Корниенко; born 15 April 1960) is a Russian cosmonaut. Kornienko served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station during Expedition 23/ 24 and was selected alo ...
return to Earth from spaceflight
Soyuz TMA-18M
Soyuz TMA-18M was a 2015 Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station. It provided the two twelve-months occupants ( Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko) at the International Space Station with a fresh Soyuz capsule. TMA-18M was the 127th ...
, after spending 340 days in space, setting an
ISS
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAX ...
record.
*2 March – Climate change could kill more than 500,000 people a year globally by 2050 by making their diets less healthy, according to research published in the ''Lancet''.
*3 March
**The most remote galaxy ever detected –
GN-z11
GN-z11 is a high-redshift galaxy found in the constellation Ursa Major. It is one of the farthest known galaxies from Earth ever discovered. The 2015 discovery was published in a 2016 paper headed by Pascal Oesch and Gabriel Brammer (Cosmic Daw ...
– is confirmed by the Hubble Space Telescope at a distance of 13.4 billion light years.
**The global average temperature briefly spikes 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial average, considered by most countries to be the "dangerous" limit for climate change.
*4 March –
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
scientists demonstrate that 'naïve' pluripotent stem cells can be derived from a human embryo. One of the most flexible types of stem cell, these can develop into all human tissue other than the placenta.
*7 March – German researchers identify a specific gene mutation in humans that provides a 50 percent lower risk of suffering a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which m ...
.
*9 March
**NASA announces that the robotic Mars
InSight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings:
*a piece of information
*the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intu ...
lander, equipped with a seismometer and a heat transfer probe, has been approved for a 5 May 2018 launch date. The original launch date in this month was cancelled in December 2015 due to a technical failure.
**
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
's
DeepMind
DeepMind Technologies is a British artificial intelligence subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and research laboratory founded in 2010. DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, after Google's restru ...
AlphaGo
AlphaGo is a computer program that plays the board game Go. It was developed by DeepMind Technologies a subsidiary of Google (now Alphabet Inc.). Subsequent versions of AlphaGo became increasingly powerful, including a version that competed u ...
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
defeats South Korea's
Lee Se-dol
Lee Sedol ( ko, 이세돌; born 2 March 1983), or Lee Se-dol, is a former South Korean professional Go player of 9 dan rank. As of February 2016, he ranked second in international titles (18), behind only Lee Chang-ho (21). He is the fi ...
in the first of a series of ''
Go'' games in Seoul.
** A
total solar eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six mon ...
occurred.

*10 March – Data from
Mauna Loa Observatory
The Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) is an atmospheric baseline station on Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii, located in the U.S. state of Hawaii.
The observatory
Since 1958, initially under the direction of Charles Keeling, followed by his son ...
in Hawaii shows that
carbon emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and l ...
in 2015 grew at their fastest rate on record.
*11 March – ''
Ideonella sakaiensis
''Ideonella sakaiensis'' is a bacterium from the genus'' Ideonella'' and family Comamonadaceae capable of breaking down and consuming the plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using it as both a carbon and energy source. The bacterium was o ...
'', the first species of bacteria able to degrade
polyethylene terephthalate, (PET) is described by Japanese researchers.
*14 March –
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO or ExoMars Orbiter) is a collaborative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Roscosmos agency that sent an atmospheric research orbiter and the ''Schiaparelli'' demonstration lander ...
is launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 09:31 GMT.
*15 March –
Fairy circle (arid grass formation)
Fairy circles are circular patches of land barren of plants, varying between in diameter, often encircled by a ring of stimulated growth of grass. Until 2014, the phenomenon was only known to occur in the arid grasslands of the Namib desert i ...
patterns in
spinifex are discovered in remote
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...
; their first discovery outside of Namibia.
*17 March
**Paleontologists report the discovery of a pregnant ''
Tyrannosaurus rex
''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...
'', shedding light on the evolution of egg-laying as well as gender differences in the dinosaur.
**Researchers at
Rutgers
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...
and
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
universities develop a novel way to inject healthy human nerve cells into mouse brains, with potential for treating Parkinson's disease and other brain-related conditions, though human trials are likely 10–20 years away.
**Studies suggest that
modern human
Early modern human (EMH) or anatomically modern human (AMH) are terms used to distinguish ''Homo sapiens'' (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans from extin ...
s bred with
hominin
The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas).
The t ...
s, including
Denisovan
The Denisovans or Denisova hominins ) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human that ranged across Asia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Denisovans are known from few physical remains and consequently, most of what is know ...
s and
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While ...
s, on multiple occasions.
**Researchers at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...
use stem cell therapy to reverse age-related
osteoporosis in mice.
*21 March – Man-made
carbon emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and l ...
lead to total carbon emissions 10 times higher than at any point since the
extinction of the dinosaurs
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
, according to new calculations by researchers.
*24 March
**Scientists at
Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 1 ...
identify
translin
Translin is a DNA-binding protein that in humans is encoded by the ''TSN'' gene. Together with translin-associated factor X, translin forms the component 3 of promoter of RISC (C3PO) complex which facilitates endonucleolytic cleavage of the pas ...
as a gene responsible for
sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation, also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness, is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness, performance, and health. It can be either chronic or acute and may vary ...
and
metabolic disorders
A metabolic disorder is a disorder that negatively alters the body's processing and distribution of macronutrients, such as proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Metabolic disorders can happen when abnormal chemical reactions in the body alter the ...
.
**The cavefish ''
Cryptotora thamicola
The waterfall climbing cave fish (''Cryptotora thamicola''), also known as the cave angel fish, is a species of troglobitic hillstream loach endemic to Thailand. It reaches a length of SL. This fish is known for its fins, which can grapple o ...
'', able to walk and climb waterfalls, is reported to show anatomical features previously known only in four-limbed vertebrates. Researchers call the finding "huge" in evolutionary terms.

**
Craig Venter
John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and businessman. He is known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome and assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. ...
's team announce they have synthesised a minimal bacterial genome, containing only the genes necessary for life, and consisting of just 473 genes. This builds upon their earlier research that synthesised ''
Mycoplasma laboratorium
''Mycoplasma laboratorium'' or Synthia refers to a synthetic strain of bacterium. The project to build the new bacterium has evolved since its inception. Initially the goal was to identify a minimal set of genes that are required to sustain li ...
'' in 2010.
*29 March –
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Res ...
announces an optical sensor a million times more sensitive than the current best available, with potential for improving early cancer detection.
*30 March
**A study by climate scientists concludes that sea level increases by 2100 could be twice as high as the
IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
's most recent estimates.
**Scientists report that ''
Homo floresiensis
''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.
The remains of an ...
'', an extinct
hominin
The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas).
The t ...
nicknamed the "
hobbit
Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, ...
", disappeared about 50,000 years ago, much earlier than the 12,000 years ago estimated initially.
**A study by MIT predicts that much of
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
will be at high risk of severe
water stress
Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is whe ...
by 2050, with an extra billion more people becoming water stressed compared to today.
*31 March – Astronomers report the discovery of a unique
white dwarf star
A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...
– designated
SDSS J1240+6710 – which has a 99.9 percent oxygen atmosphere.
April
*1 April – A study by the
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8. ...
concludes that drinking even moderate amounts of
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
can significantly reduce the risk of developing
colorectal cancer.
*4 April
** Researchers found the fossil of ''
Aquilonifer spinosus'' covered in
carbonate
A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonat ...
from a formation called the
Herefordshire Lagerstätte
Coalbrookdale Formation, earlier known as Wenlock Shale or Wenlock Shale Formation and also referred to as Herefordshire Lagerstätte in palaeontology, is a fossil-rich deposit ('' Konservat-Lagerstätte'') in Powys and Herefordshire at the Engla ...
in UK.
** A new quantum state of matter is discovered in a
graphene
Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. -like magnetic material RuCl
3 hosting curious magnetic
quasiparticle
In physics, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related emergent phenomena arising when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum.
For exa ...
s called
Majorana fermion
A Majorana fermion (, uploaded 19 April 2013, retrieved 5 October 2014; and also based on the pronunciation of physicist's name.), also referred to as a Majorana particle, is a fermion that is its own antiparticle. They were hypothesised by E ...
s which are their own antiparticles. It is a step forward in materials which will allow quantum computation.
*7 April
** A new analysis of
clouds
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals ma ...
and their role in
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...
reveals they contain more liquid water (as opposed to ice) than previously thought. This makes them less reflective and therefore results in more heat reaching the Earth's surface, meaning that future temperature increases may have been underestimated.
** A new method to produce transistors is presented, based on nanocrystal 'inks'. This allows them to be produced on flexible surfaces, possibly with 3D printers.
*8 April –
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
successfully lands the first stage of a
Falcon 9
Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX.
The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pa ...
rocket (
SpaceX CRS-8
SpaceX CRS-8, also known as SpX-8, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which was launched on April 8, 2016, at 20:43 UTC. It was the 23rd flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, the tenth flight of a ...
) on a floating drone ship for the first time.

*9 April – By adding a one-atom thick layer of
graphene
Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. to solar panels, Chinese scientists report that electricity can be generated from raindrops.
*11 April – Scientists announce an updated biological "
Tree of life (biology), tree of life" summarizing the
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
of all known
life forms
Life form (also spelled life-form or lifeform) is an entity that is living, such as plants (flora) and animals (fauna). It is estimated that more than 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are ex ...
, and find that the branches of the new overview, based on the latest
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...
tic findings, are mainly composed of
bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...
.
*12 April – Scientists announce
Breakthrough Starshot
Breakthrough Starshot is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail interstellar probes named ''Starchip'', to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star ...
, a
Breakthrough Initiatives
Breakthrough Initiatives is a science-based program founded in 2015 and funded by Julia and Yuri Milner, also of Breakthrough Prize, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence over a span of at least 10 years. The program is divided into multipl ...
program, to develop a
proof-of-concept
Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has prac ...
fleet of small centimeter-sized
light sail
Solar sails (also known as light sails and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been p ...
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to spaceflight, fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth ...
, named ''
StarChip
Breakthrough Starshot is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail interstellar probes named ''Starchip'', to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star ...
'',
capable of making the journey to
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centau ...
, the nearest
star system
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a '' star cluster'' or ''galaxy'', although, broadly speakin ...
, at speeds of 20%
and 15%
of the
speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...
, taking between 20 and 30 years to reach the star system, respectively, and about 4 years to notify
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
of a successful arrival.
*13 April
**A
quadriplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or t ...
man, Ian Burkhart from Ohio, is able to perform complex functional movements with his fingers after a chip was implanted in his brain.
**Astronomers report the discovery of
Crater 2, the fourth largest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, at a distance of 380,000 light years.
**An international team reports synthesising ultra-long
carbyne
In organic chemistry, a carbyne is a general term for any compound whose structure consists of an electrically neutral carbon atom connected by a single covalent bond and has three non-bonded electrons. The carbon atom has either one or three ...
inside double-walled nanotubes. This exotic form of
carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes ...
is even stronger than
graphene
Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. .
*14 April – The discovery of hormone
asprosin
Asprosin is a protein hormone produced by mammals in ( white adipose) tissues that stimulates the liver to release glucose into the blood stream. Asprosin is encoded by the gene ''FBN1'' as part of the protein profibrillin and is released from the ...
is reported in ''
Cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery w ...
''.

*21 April – BioViva USA reports the first successful use of
gene therapy
Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human D ...
to extend the length of
telomeres
A telomere (; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes. Although there are different architectures, telomeres, in a broad sense, are a widespread genetic feature mos ...
in a human patient.
*22 April
**The discovery of
quantum tunneling of water molecules is reported.
**Scientists announce the discovery of an
extensive reef system near the
Amazon River, covering an estimated 3,600 square miles (9,300 km
2).
*26 April – Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope report the discovery of
a moon orbiting the remote dwarf planet
Makemake
Makemake ( minor-planet designation 136472 Makemake) is a dwarf planet and – depending on how they are defined – the second-largest Kuiper belt object in the classical population, with a diameter approximately 60% that of Pluto. It ...
.
*28 April
**Scientists identify a pair of molecular signals controlling skin and hair colour, which could be targeted by new drugs to treat skin pigment disorders like
vitiligo
Vitiligo is a disorder that causes the skin to lose its color. Specific causes are unknown but studies suggest a link to immune system changes.
Signs and symptoms
The only sign of vitiligo is the presence of pale patchy areas of depigmen ...
.
**A new paper in ''Astrobiology'' suggests there could be a way to simplify the
Drake equation
The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy.
The equation was formulated in 1961 by Frank Drake, not for purposes of quantifying t ...
, based on observations of exoplanets discovered in the last two decades.
*29 April – A team at Stanford University reveals "OceanOne", a humanoid robot capable of moving around the seabed using thrusters.
May
*2 May
**Researchers of the
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
The Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Otto Hahn Institute; german: Max Planck Institut für Chemie - Otto Hahn Institut) is a non-university research institute under the auspices of the Max Planck Society (German: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) in ...
and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia calculate that in future decades, the Middle East and North Africa could become so hot that human habitability is compromised.
**Researchers at the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...
and
University of Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5, ...
announce they have sequenced the mitochondrial genome for the
Hispaniolan solenodon
The Hispaniolan solenodon (''Solenodon paradoxus'') is a small, furry, shrew-like mammal endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (in the Dominican Republic and Haiti). Like other solenodons, it is a venomous, insect-eating animal that li ...
, a venomous mammal found only on
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and t ...
. Their findings confirm that the species diverged from all other living
mammals
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fu ...
about 78 million years ago, before dinosaurs went extinct.
**Astronomers discover three potentially Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of an ultracool brown dwarf star (
TRAPPIST-1) just 40 light years away from Earth.
**A study in ''PNAS'' concludes that Earth may be home to 1 trillion
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...
, with 99.999 percent remaining undiscovered.

*4 May – The most detailed ever study of
leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia ...
populations reveals that the animals have lost 75% of their historical habitat range since 1750.
*9 May
**A
transit of Mercury
frameless, upright=0.5
A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet. During a transit, Mercury appears as a tiny black dot moving across the Sun as the planet o ...
occurs.
**
Oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as we ...
is detected in the
Martian atmosphere
The atmosphere of Mars is the layer of gases surrounding Mars. It is primarily composed of carbon dioxide (95%), molecular nitrogen (2.8%), and argon (2%). It also contains trace levels of water vapor, oxygen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and no ...
for the first time in 40 years.
*10 May
**NASA's
Kepler mission
The Kepler space telescope is a disused space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbi ...
verifies 1,284 new
exoplanets
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
– the single largest finding of planets to date.
**
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
announces a 256 gigabyte
microSD
Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices.
The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between San ...
card.
*13 May – Scientists consider extending the ''
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a ...
'' to include creating a
synthetic human genome.
*16 May – NASA confirms that April 2016 was the hottest April ever recorded, beating the previous record set in 2010 by 0.24 °C, the largest margin ever.
*17 May
**Scientists at IBM Research announce a storage memory breakthrough by reliably storing three bits of data per cell using a new memory technology known as phase-change memory (PCM). The results could provide fast and easy storage to capture the exponential growth of data in the future.
**A detailed report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine finds no risk to human health from
genetic modifications of food.
**Researchers at the University of Virginia Health System find that the
Oct4
Oct-4 ( octamer-binding transcription factor 4), also known as POU5F1 ( POU domain, class 5, transcription factor 1), is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''POU5F1'' gene. Oct-4 is a homeodomain transcription factor of the POU family. ...
gene, once thought to be inactive in adults, actually plays a vital role in preventing heart attacks and strokes. The gene could delay at least some of the effects of aging.
*18 May
**At the
I/O developer conference, Google reveals it has been working on a new chip, known as the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which delivers "an order of magnitude higher performance per watt than all commercially available GPUs and FPGA."
**A study of
Totten Glacier
Totten Glacier is a large glacier draining a major portion of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, through the Budd Coast of Wilkes Land in the Australian Antarctic Territory. The catchment drained by the glacier is estimated at , extending approximate ...
, East Antarctica's largest outlet of ice, reveals that its melting could pass a critical threshold within the next century, entering a period of irreversible retreat and ultimately adding nearly three metres to global sea levels.
*19 May – Scientists in the US report evidence that
tsunamis
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater expl ...
up to 120m high swept across Mars in the ancient past.

*23 May
**India conducts the first successful launch of a new
space plane
A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes te ...
, called the
Reusable Launch Vehicle
A reusable launch vehicle have parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space. Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as rocket engines and boo ...
(RLV), which is delivered to a height of 65 kilometres (40 mi).
**Significant
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...
data arising from the
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 2 ...
and
NEOWISE
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 20 ...
missions is questioned,
but the criticism did not undergo peer review yet.
On 22 May 2018, a more recent peer-reviewed follow-up study is subsequently published.
*24 May – A survey of 216,000 adolescents from all 50 US states finds the number of teens with
marijuana
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in variou ...
-related problems is declining and marijuana use is falling, despite the fact that more US states are legalising or decriminalising the drug.
*25 May – Researchers discover new evidence that
amyloid-beta protein acts as a natural
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy, ...
in the brain:
Alzheimer's
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As ...
-associated amyloid plaques may be a normal part of the
immune system
The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to parasitic worms, as well as Tumor immunology, cancer cells and objects such ...
, and removing amyloid could actually be harmful.
*26 May – Evidence of a recent, extreme
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
on Mars is published in the journal ''Science''. Just 370,000 years ago, the planet would have appeared more white than red, the authors say.
*27 May –
Strimvelis, an ex-vivo stem cell gene therapy for
adenosine deaminase deficiency
Adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA deficiency) is a metabolic disorder that causes immunodeficiency. It is caused by mutations in the ADA gene. It accounts for about 10–15% of all cases of autosomal recessive forms of severe combined immuno ...
, and the first
gene therapy
Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human D ...
for children, is granted regulatory approval by the European Commission.
June
*1 June
**Worldwide,
renewable energy grew at its fastest ever rate in 2015, according to a report by the
Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).
**Scientists at Rice University characterise how single-molecule "nanocars" move in open air, which they claim will help the kinetics of molecular machines in ambient conditions over time.
*2 June
**Scientists formally announce
HGP-Write, a plan to synthesize the
human genome
The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the ...
.
**A Stanford clinical trial finds that
stem cells
In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of ...
injected directly into the brain of chronic
stroke sufferers revived dead brain circuits and restored patients' ability to walk.

*3 June
**
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
and
ESA
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1 ...
jointly announce that the
Universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. A ...
is
expanding 5% to 9%
faster than previously thought, after using the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ver ...
to measure the distance to stars in 19 galaxies beyond the
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...
.
**A new combination of chemotherapy drugs for
pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer arises when cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a mass. These cancerous cells have the ability to invade other parts of the body. A number of types of panc ...
, presented at the world's biggest cancer conference, shows long-term survival could be increased from 16% to 29%.
*7 June – The
National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that the
Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest on record for May by an unusually wide margin.
*8 June – The
IUPAC
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...
proposes the final names of four new chemical elements on the
periodic table
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ...
:
nihonium
Nihonium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Nh and atomic number 113. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable known isotope, nihonium-286, has a half-life of about 10 seconds. In the periodic table, nihonium is a transact ...
,
moscovium
Moscovium is a synthetic element with the symbol Mc and atomic number 115. It was first synthesized in 2003 by a joint team of Russian and American scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. In December 2015, ...
,
tennessine
Tennessine is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Ts and atomic number 117. It is the second-heaviest known element and the penultimate element of the 7th period of the periodic table.
The discovery of tennessine was officially anno ...
, and
oganesson
Oganesson is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Og and atomic number 118. It was first synthesized in 2002 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, near Moscow, Russia, by a joint team of Russian and American scien ...
.
*9 June – A way of pumping underground and turning it from a gas into solid
carbonate
A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonat ...
minerals is demonstrated in Iceland, offering a potentially better method of
carbon capture and storage
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it ( carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually ...
.
*13 June – Researchers at the University of Cambridge demonstrate a hybrid of excited molecules and molecules plus emitted light, created at room temperature.
*14 June – Researchers from
Queensland's Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, and the
University of Queensland
, mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work
, established =
, endowment = A$224.3 million
, budget = A$2.1 billion
, type = Public research university
, chancellor = Peter Varghese
, vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry
, city = ...
jointly report that the
Bramble Cay melomys
The Bramble Cay melomys, or Bramble Cay mosaic-tailed rat (''Melomys rubicola''), is a recently extinct species of rodent in the family Muridae and subfamily Murinae. It was an endemic species of the isolated Bramble Cay, a low-lying vegetat ...
is likely extinct, adding: "Significantly, this probably represents the first recorded
mammalian
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds ( taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed ...
due to
anthropogenic
Anthropogenic ("human" + "generating") is an adjective that may refer to:
* Anthropogeny, the study of the origins of humanity
Counterintuitively, anthropogenic may also refer to things that have been generated by humans, as follows:
* Human i ...
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
."
*15 June
**Scientists announce detecting a second
gravitational wave
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in ...
event (
GW151226
GW151226 was a gravitational wave signal detected by the LIGO observatory on 25 December 2015 local time (26 Dec 2015 UTC). On 15 June 2016, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations announced that they had verified the signal, making it the second such ...
) resulting from the collision of
black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can defo ...
s.
**NASA astronomers announce the discovery of
469219 Kamoʻoalewa
469219 Kamoʻoalewa (), provisionally designated , is a very small asteroid, fast rotator and near-Earth object of the Apollo group, approximately in diameter. At present it is a quasi-satellite of Earth, and currently the smallest, closest, ...
(then known as ), an
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...
first observed on 27 April 2016, that is considered the best and most stable example to date of a constant near-Earth companion, or "quasi-satellite" of
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
.

*16 June – Researchers at
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United State ...
announce a new method for long-term culturing of adult stem cells.
*20 June
**China introduces the
Sunway TaihuLight
The Sunway TaihuLight ( ''Shénwēi·tàihú zhī guāng'') is a Chinese supercomputer which, , is ranked fourth in the TOP500 list, with a LINPACK benchmark rating of 93 petaflops. The name is translated as ''divine power, the light of Taihu Lak ...
, the world's fastest
supercomputer, capable of 93 petaflops and a peak performance of 125 petaflops.
**Astronomers discover that the
galaxy
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...
Dragonfly 44
Dragonfly 44 is an ultra diffuse galaxy in the Coma Cluster. This galaxy is well-known because observations of the velocity dispersion in 2016 suggested a mass of about one trillion solar masses, about the same as the Milky Way. This mass was co ...
consists of 99.99%
dark matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...
, much more than in all other known galaxies.
*23 June – Dutch scientists announce that crops of four vegetables and cereals grown in
soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former ...
similar to that on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...
are safe to eat.
*29 June –
NASA scientists report that the
bright spot
In reflection seismology, a bright spot is a local high amplitude seismic attribute anomaly that can indicate the presence of hydrocarbons and is therefore known as a direct hydrocarbon indicator. It is used by geophysicists in hydrocarbon explo ...
in
Occator crater
Occator is an impact crater located on Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, that contains "Spot 5", the brightest of the bright spots observed by the Dawn spacecraft. It was kn ...
on the
dwarf planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to ...
Ceres may be mostly
sodium carbonate ().
*30 June – The first known death caused by a
self-driving car
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
is disclosed by
Tesla Motors
Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles ( electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to gr ...
.
July

*1 July – A new family of
tetraquark
A tetraquark, in particle physics, is an exotic meson composed of four valence quarks. A tetraquark state has long been suspected to be allowed by quantum chromodynamics, the modern theory of strong interactions. A tetraquark state is an example ...
particles – named X(4140), X(4274), X(4500), and X(4700) – is announced by researchers at the
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundr ...
.
*4 July – NASA scientists announce the arrival of the ''
Juno
Juno commonly refers to:
* Juno (mythology), the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods
* ''Juno'' (film), 2007
Juno may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional characters
*Juno, in the film ''Jenny, Juno''
*Juno, in the ...
'' spacecraft at the planet
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...
.
*5 July – China completes construction on the world's largest
radio telescope.
*11 July – Astronomers announce the discovery of
2015 RR245
, provisional designation , is a large trans-Neptunian object of the Kuiper belt in the outermost regions of the Solar System. It was discovered on 9 September 2015, by the Outer Solar System Origins Survey at Mauna Kea Observatories on the B ...
, a dwarf planet candidate in the
Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 t ...
with a highly elliptical 700-year orbit.
*13 July – U.S. and Indian scientists report that
graphene
Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. -infused packaging is a million times better at blocking moisture than typical plastic.
*20 July
**Using the Hubble telescope, scientists perform the first spectroscopy of the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets (orbiting
TRAPPIST-1).
**Scientists at Rice University announce a new titanium-gold alloy that is four times harder than most steels.
*21 July – The
List of weather records#Highest temperatures ever recorded, hottest ever temperature in the
Eastern Hemisphere
The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole to po ...
is reported, with
Mitribah
Mitribah is a weather station (40551 in the World Meteorological Organization database) in northwest Kuwait. On July 21, 2016, the temperature at this location hit the third highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth at .
References ...
,
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the no ...
reaching 54 °C (129.2 °F). This is second only to
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the hottest place on Earth.
Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in North Am ...
in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...
, which saw 56.7 °C (134.1 °F) in 1913.
*25 July
**Scientists report identifying a set of 355
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...
s from the
Last Universal Common Ancestor
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. This includes all cellular organisms; ...
(LUCA) of all
organism
In biology, an organism () is any life, living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy (biology), taxonomy into groups such as Multicellular o ...
s
living on Earth
''Living on Earth'' is a weekly, hour-long and award-winning environmental news program distributed by Public Radio Exchange (on Public Radio International from October 6, 2006, show to December 6, 2019, show, and before that, NPR from 1991 until ...
.
**Sex hormones can stimulate production of
telomerase
Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most e ...
, an enzyme naturally found in the human organism, new research shows.
*26 July –
Solar Impulse 2
Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project, and also the name of the project's two operational aircraft. The privately financed project is led by Swiss engineer and businessman André Borschberg and Swiss p ...
becomes the first
solar-powered aircraft
An electric aircraft is an aircraft powered by electricity.
Electric aircraft are seen as a way to reduce the environmental effects of aviation, providing zero emissions and quieter flights.
Electricity may be supplied by a variety of methods ...
to circumnavigate the Earth.
*27 July
**Neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used insecticide, are found to reduce bee sperm counts by almost 40%, as well as cutting the lifespan of bee drones by a third.
**Researchers in Germany discover that bacteria from the human nose produces a novel
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy, ...
which is effective against multiresistant pathogens.
**Current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases already commit the planet to air temperatures over many land regions being eventually warmed by greater than 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to new research.
*28 July – A new "vortex" laser that travels in a corkscrew pattern is shown to carry 10 times or more the information of conventional lasers, potentially offering a way to extend Moore's Law.
*29 July – The seafloor in the Clipperton Fracture Zone, Clarion-Clipperton Zone – an area in the Pacific Ocean being targeted for Deep sea mining, deep-sea mining – is found to contain an abundance and diversity of life, with more than half of the species collected being new to science.
August
*1 August – Using the DNA from over 450,000 customers of gene-testing company 23andMe, researchers identify for the first time 15 regions of the genome associated with Depression (mood), depression.
*3 August – Researchers pinpoint which of the more than 4,000 exoplanet candidates discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are most likely to be similar to Earth. Their research outlines 216 Kepler planets located within the 'habitable zone', of which 20 are the best candidates to be habitable rocky planets like Earth.
* 4 August – A team at the University of Oxford achieves a quantum logic gate with record-breaking 99.9% precision, reaching the benchmark required to build a quantum computer.
* 5 August
**Analysis of an increased dataset at the
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundr ...
suggests that the 750 GeV diphoton excess observed in 2015
was probably just a statistical fluctuation.
**Research by Imperial College London suggests that a new form of light can be created by binding it to a single electron, combining the properties of both.

* 6 August – Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, create the first dust-sized wireless sensors that may be implanted within the body.
* 8 August – New research by Stanford University suggests that phase-change memory can be engineered to be 1,000 times faster, while using less energy and requiring less space.
* 11 August
**Venus may have been habitable in the ancient past, with a shallow liquid-water ocean and much lower temperatures than today, according to NASA climate models.
**The Greenland shark (''Somniosus microcephalus'') is found to be the longest-lived vertebrate, able to reach a lifespan of nearly 400 years.
* 12 August – Researchers at University College London devise a software algorithm able to scan and replicate almost anyone's handwriting.
* 15 August
**NASA reports that July 2016 was the hottest single month in recorded history (going back to 1880), at 1.51 degrees Fahrenheit (0.84 degrees Celsius) above the 1950-1980 global average.
**NASA confirms that fracking is responsible for a huge methane hot spot in the United States.
**A possible new subatomic particle could provide evidence of a fifth Fundamental interaction, fundamental force of nature, according to research published in ''Physical Review Letters'' by scientists at the University of California, Irvine.
**Replacing tropical lowland forests with Palm oil, palm oil plantations can damage 11 out of 14 functions of a healthy ecosystem, some of which will be irreparable, concludes a study by the Helmholtz Centre For Environmental Research.
* 16 August – MIT announces a breakthrough which can double lithium-ion battery capacity.
* 22 August – Researchers at Princeton demonstrate an open source 25-core chip that can easily be scaled to create a 200,000-core computer.

* 24 August – Astronomers announce the detection of ''Proxima b'', an Terrestrial planet, Earth-sized
exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
that is in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.
Due to its closeness to
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
, ''Proxima b'' may be a flyby destination for a fleet of interstellar ''
StarChip
Breakthrough Starshot is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail interstellar probes named ''Starchip'', to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star ...
'' spacecraft currently being developed by the
Breakthrough Starshot
Breakthrough Starshot is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail interstellar probes named ''Starchip'', to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star ...
project.
* 25 August – Astronomers report that
Dragonfly 44
Dragonfly 44 is an ultra diffuse galaxy in the Coma Cluster. This galaxy is well-known because observations of the velocity dispersion in 2016 suggested a mass of about one trillion solar masses, about the same as the Milky Way. This mass was co ...
, an ultra diffuse galaxy (UDG) with the mass of the
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...
galaxy
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...
, but with nearly no discernable stars or galactic structure, might be made almost entirely of
dark matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...
.
* 26 August – The University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy publish an animated map showing where mammals, birds and amphibians are projected to move in the Western Hemisphere in response to climate change.
* 27 August – NASA's ''Juno'' probe makes a close pass of Jupiter, coming within of the cloud tops – the closest any spacecraft has ever approached the gas giant without entering its atmosphere.
* 28 August
**HI-SEAS IV, the latest HI-SEAS, Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, an experiment to simulate a human colony on Mars, concludes after exactly one year.
**DNA is sequenced in outer space for the first time, with NASA astronaut Kate Rubins using a MinION device aboard the International Space Station.
*31 August
**The world's oldest known fossils, which may be stromatolites, are claimed to have been found on a wavy rock feature in southwestern Greenland, possibly Abiogenesis, dating back 3.7 billion years.
**Aducanumab, a new antibody, is shown to significantly reduce harmful beta-amyloid plaques in patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease.
September
*1 September – An Solar eclipse of September 1, 2016, annular solar eclipse occurs.
*2 September – Carbon nanotube transistors are shown to outperform silicon for the first time.
*4 September – The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) changes the status of the giant panda from "endangered" to "vulnerable" after decades of conservation work. However, the Eastern Gorilla – the largest living primate – is listed as Critically Endangered.
*5 September
**Philae (spacecraft), Philae, the lander of ESA's Rosetta (spacecraft), Rosetta spacecraft, is located on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko; the exact position of the probe was not known earlier since its landing on the comet in November 2014.
**Typhoons in East Asia have grown 50% stronger in the past 40 years due to warming seas, according to a new study.

*7 September – One-tenth of the world's wilderness is reported to have disappeared in the last 20 years – an area twice the size of Alaska – with the Amazon and Central Africa being the hardest hit regions.
*8 September
**DNA testing of skeletal remains in London confirms that ''Yersinia pestis'' was the bacteria responsible for the Great Plague of London, Great Plague of 1665.
**NASA launches the seven-year OSIRIS-REx mission, which aims to reach the 500m-wide asteroid 101955 Bennu, Bennu and bring a sample back to Earth.
**A genetic analysis shows that the genus giraffe, previously thought to contain one extant species, actually consists of four.
*10 September – The Campo del Cielo, second largest meteorite ever found is exhumed near Gancedo, Argentina. It weighs 30 tonnes and fell to Earth around 2000 BC.
*13 September – The European Space Agency releases the first batch of data from the Gaia (spacecraft), Gaia space telescope, which has recorded the position and brightness of a billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
*14 September – Astronomers announce that the reddish-brown cap of the north pole of Charon (moon), Charon, the largest of five Moons of Pluto, moons that orbit the
dwarf planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to ...
Pluto, is composed of tholins, organic compound, organic macromolecules produced from methane,
nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at seve ...
and related gases released from the atmosphere of Pluto and transferred over about distance to the orbiting moon.
*16 September – The development of 1 terabit-per-second transmission rates over optical fiber is announced by Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsche Telekom T-Labs and the Technical University of Munich.
*20 September
**Sandisk announces the first 1 terabyte SD card at photokina 2016.
**A Japanese team accurately sequences a
tardigrade
Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserbär ...
genome, finds minimal foreign DNA, and discovers a protein that confers resistance to radiation when transferred into human cells.

*21 September – Scientists report that, based on Human genome, human DNA genetic studies, all Behavioral modernity, non-African humans in the world today can be traced to a Anatomically modern human, single population that Recent African origin of modern humans, exited Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.
*22 September
**Meltwater ponds are reported in East Antarctica for the first time, after temperatures rose above 0 °C.
**Researchers at the University of Toronto create the first map that shows the global genetic interaction network of a cell. It begins to explain how thousands of genes coordinate with one another to orchestrate cellular life.
*25 September – The Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) becomes operational in Guizhou Province, southwest China.
*26 September – Mercury (planet), Mercury is found to be tectonically active.
*27 September
**The world's first baby born through a controversial new "three parent" technique is reported.
**
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
founder and entrepreneur Elon Musk reveals his plan to send humans to Mars on a new spacecraft, with uncrewed flights beginning as early as 2022.
*29 September – A study led by the University of Cambridge finds that Body worn video, body-worn cameras led to a 93% drop in complaints made against police by the UK and US public.
* 30 September – The Rosetta (spacecraft), ''Rosetta'' spacecraft ends its mission by attempting a soft-landing inside a wide pit, called Deir el-Medina, on comet 67P. The walls of the pit contain wide so-called "goose bumps", considered to be building blocks of the comet.
October

*3 October
**A study published by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee shows that caffeine consumption may reduce the risk of dementia in women by 36 percent.
**The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan for discoveries about autophagy.
**The ''British Journal of Sports Medicine'' reports that playing golf can increase life expectancy by five years.
*4 October – The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to David J. Thouless, Duncan Haldane, F. Duncan M. Haldane and John M. Kosterlitz for discoveries relating to exotic quantum states of matter and topological order.
*5 October
**The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa, Bernard L. Feringa for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.
**Scientists identify the maximum Ageing, human lifespan at an average age of 115, with an absolute upper limit of Old age, 125 years old.
**NASA's Cassini–Huygens, Cassini mission reveals evidence of a subsurface ocean within Saturn's moon Dione (moon), Dione.
*6 October
**Researchers at France's CNRS research institute announce that Proxima b may have oceans.
**Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory demonstrate a working 1 nanometre (nm) transistor.
*9 October – Nivolumab is shown to more than double the one-year survival rate of patients with head and neck cancer compared with chemotherapy. It also shrinks tumours in advanced kidney cancer patients.

*10 October – A study by the Earth Institute at Columbia University finds that wildfires have doubled in area over the last 30 years due to climate change.
*11 October
**President Obama renews a vision for US government involvement in a Human mission to Mars, human mission to the Mars, planet Mars by the mid-2030s.
**Astronomers announce the discovery of 2014 UZ224, a new dwarf planet 13.6 billion km (8.5 billion miles) from the Sun.
*12 October
**Astronomers report that the very basic chemical ingredients of life—the Carbon-hydrogen bond, carbon-hydrogen molecule (CH, or methylidyne radical), the carbon-hydrogen positive ion (CH+) and the carbon ion (C+)—are the result, in large part, of ultraviolet light from stars, rather than in other ways, such as the result of turbulent events related to supernovae and young stars, as thought earlier.
**Plans are announced for 'Asgardia (nation), Asgardia' – the first nation state in outer space.
*13 October – Using 3D imaging techniques on 20 years of photographs by the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ver ...
, astronomers estimate there are 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, about 10 times more than previously thought.
*17 October
**A team at Australia's University of New South Wales create a new Quantum superposition, quantum bit that remains in a stable superposition for 10 times longer than previously achieved.
**NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) reports that September 2016 was the hottest September on record globally.
*18 October
**A new automated system that can achieve parity with humans in conversational speech recognition is announced by researchers at Microsoft.
**Researchers at the University of Warwick discover the physical location of Major depressive disorder, depression in the human brain, which is found to affect the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, implicated in non-reward.

*19 October –
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO or ExoMars Orbiter) is a collaborative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Roscosmos agency that sent an atmospheric research orbiter and the ''Schiaparelli'' demonstration lander ...
arrives at Mars; the accompanying Schiaparelli EDM lander, Schiaparelli crashes on the surface after its parachute was jettisoned too early and its rockets fired for too short a time.
On 21 October 2016, NASA released a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter :File:PIA21130-SignsOfSchiaparelliTestLanderSeenFromOrbit-20161021.gif, image showing what appears to be the Schiaparelli EDM lander crash site.
*20 October – Researchers at James Cook University in Australia report that adding a type of dried seaweed (''Asparagopsis taxiformis'') to the diet of cattle could reduce their emissions of methane by 50-70%.
*21 October – MIT announces a new record for plasma pressure in an Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor, achieving over 2 atmospheres of pressure for the first time.
*24 October – The World Meteorological Organisation reports that 2016 will likely be the first full year when Atmospheric carbon dioxide, atmospheric CO
2 stayed above 400ppm.
*25 October – Receiving the last bit of data (of a total of 50 billion bits of data; or 6.25 gigabytes) from the ''New Horizons'' spacecraft, from its close encounter with the
dwarf planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to ...
Pluto on 14 July 2015, ends at 05:48 pm, ET on 25 October 2016. ''New Horizons'' is currently on a journey to 486958 Arrokoth, a Classical Kuiper belt object, classical Kuiper belt object (KBO), and is expected to swing closely past the object on 1 January 2019.
*27 October
**''The Living Planet assessment'', by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and WWF, reports that vertebrate wildlife populations have fallen by 58% globally since 1970, and suggests this figure may reach two-thirds among vertebrates by 2020.
**Researchers use "neighbour maps" to reveal the shape of a genome in 3-D.
**Researchers at UC Santa Barbara design a functional nanoscale computing element that could, in theory, be packed into a space no bigger than 50 nanometers on any side.
**Researchers in England identify the first known example of fossilised brain tissue in a dinosaur.
*31 October
**A study by the Nature Conservancy claims an estimated 6.2 million lives will be lost to particulate matter each year by 2050, but this pollution can be reduced by 7 to 24 percent near trees, while the cooling effect is up to 2 °C (3.6 °F).
**Researchers at Penn State report a 1,000-fold increase in the scanning speed for 3-D printing, using a space-charge-controlled KTN beam deflector with a large electro-optic effect.
November
*1 November – Scientists at Rockefeller University use a technique called "light sculpting" to view the neurons of a mouse brain firing in real-time in 3-D.
*2 November – Construction of the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror is completed, launched in late 2021.

*3 November
**Scanning people's brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is found to be significantly more effective at spotting lies than a traditional polygraph test.
**Scientists publish early human results of a potent BACE1 inhibitor for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
**A study published in the journal ''Tobacco Control'' finds that graphic warnings on cigarette packs could prevent 652,000 deaths in the U.S. over the next 50 years.
**At a conference in San Diego, Adobe Systems, Adobe demonstrates audio software that accurately replicates any person's voice, thus potentially rewriting what an original speaker has actually said.
*4 November – Researchers in the UK announce a genetically modified "superwheat" that increases the efficiency of photosynthesis to boost yields by 20 to 40 percent.
Field trials are expected in 2017.
*5 November – The University of Oxford AI Lab presents "LipNet", a new AI algorithm capable of lip-reading up to 40% more accurately than a real person.
*6 November – The International Astronomical Union approves the name ''Rigil Kentaurus'' for
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centau ...
A. This follows the naming of ''Proxima Centauri'' for Alpha Centauri C on 21 August 2016.
*8 November
**New data released by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) shows that the five years from 2011 to 2015 were the warmest on record, largely due to human activities, with 2016 likely to be even hotter.
**Lab-grown mini lungs, developed from stem cells, are successfully transplanted into mice by researchers at the University of Michigan Health System.
*9 November
**The previous upper estimate of global warming by 2100 is raised from 4.8 °C to 7.36 °C, in a study published by the University of Hawaii.
*11 November – Researchers at the University of Central Florida present research into solar nanotech-powered clothing.
*13 November – The University of East Anglia reports that global emissions of CO
2 did not grow in 2015 and are projected to rise only slightly in 2016, marking three years of almost no growth.
*14 November – A supermoon occurs, as the full Moon comes closer to the Earth than at any time since 1948.
*15 November – Scientists at Rockefeller University identify which genes in a microbe's genome ought to produce
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy, ...
compounds and then synthesize those compounds to discover two promising new antibiotics.

*16 November
**The United States Geological Survey estimates there are 20 billion barrels of oil in Texas' Wolfcamp Shale Formation, the largest estimate of continuous oil that USGS has ever assessed in the United States.
**Researchers at the Salk Institute use a new gene-editing technology known as HITI, which is based on CRISPR, to partially restore vision in blind animals. Their technique is the first time a new gene has been inserted into a precise DNA location in adult cells that no longer divide, such as those of the eye, brain, pancreas or heart.
*18 November – Researchers from Caltech and UCLA develop a technique to remove mutated DNA from mitochondria, which could help slow or reverse an important cause of aging.
*21 November – Researchers use human pluripotent stem cells to grow human intestinal tissues with functioning nerves, then use these to recreate and study a severe intestinal nerve disorder called Hirschsprung's disease.
*22 November – NASA reports that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found a huge deposit of Water on Mars, water ice just under the surface of the planet
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...
, in the region known as Utopia Planitia. The volume of water detected is equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior. (:File:PIA21136 Scalloped Terrain Led to Finding of Buried Ice on Mars.jpg, image) (:File:PIA21138-Mars-UtopiaPlanitia-Map-IceFindings-20161122.png, map)
*25 November
**Researchers create the first living cells that form silicon-carbon bonds. The responsible protein does it more efficiently than any synthetic catalyst.
**Scientists behind a theory that the
speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...
is variable – and not constant as Einstein suggested – produce a model with an exact figure on the spectral index that they say is testable.
*28 November
**Scientists at the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry(IUPAC) officially recognizes names for four new chemical elements: Nihonium, Nh, 113; Moscovium, Mc, 115; Tennessine, Ts, 117 and Oganesson, Og, 118.
**Researchers trace the origin of a 2015 iceberg to a deep subsurface rift opening within the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, West Antarctic ice shelf, the first time this has been observed.
**Large-scale testing of a potential HIV vaccine known as HVTN 702 begins in South Africa.
*29 November – A study finds that higher water temperatures during 2016 caused the worst destruction of corals ever recorded on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, with 67% dying in the worst-hit northern section.
*30 November
**Thomas Crowther et al. report that increasing soil respiration alone will add between 0.45 and 0.71 parts per million of CO
2 to the atmosphere every year until 2050. This will cause at least 55 gigatons of carbon to be lost from the soil by mid-century, equivalent to another industrialised country the size of the United States.
**Researchers calculate the weight of Earth's Novel ecosystem#Technosphere, technosphere as 30 trillion tons, a mass greater than 50 kilos for every square metre of the planet's surface.
December

*5 December – Researchers at Harvard discover a causal link between RNA splicing and aging.
*6 December
**Researchers at UC Berkeley design a wall-jumping robot known as Salto, which is described as the most vertically agile robot ever built.
**The National Snow and Ice Data Center announces record low sea ice extents for both the Arctic sea ice decline, Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, Antarctic, with "exceptionally low" sea ice cover for the Sea ice, globe as a whole.
*8 December
**The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announces that giraffe populations declined from 155,000 in 1985 to 97,000 in 2015. Their conservation status is moved from "least concern" to "vulnerable".
**The tail of a tiny, feathered, sparrow-sized Feathered dinosaur, dinosaur, found perfectly preserved in amber and believed to be 99 million years old, is described in the journal ''Current Biology''.
*9 December – Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan demonstrate a super flexible liquid crystal (LC) device, which could make electronic displays and devices more flexible, increasing their portability and versatility.
*12 December
**Harvard researchers identify an aerosol that could, in theory, be injected into the stratosphere to cool the planet from greenhouse gases, while also repairing ozone damage.
**A study of 37 mountain glaciers around the world is published, concluding with 99% certainty that climate change is driving their retreat.
*13 December – The world's largest wild reindeer herd is reported to have fallen in population by 40% since 2000, due to rising temperatures and human activity, causing the animals to change their annual migration patterns. A separate study reveals that reindeer on Svalbard have got smaller and lighter, by around 12%, due to diminishing food supplies.
*14 December – A study published in ''Nature'' finds the seahorse genome to be the most rapidly evolving fish genome studied so far.

*15 December – Scientists use a new form of
gene therapy
Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human D ...
to partially reverse aging in mice. After six weeks of treatment, the animals looked younger, had straighter spines and better cardiovascular health, healed quicker when injured, and lived 30% longer.
*19 December
**An iron 'jet stream' is detected in Earth's outer core, moving westwards under Alaska and Siberia, inferred from measurements made by Europe's Swarm satellites.
**Scientists warn that deep sea mining threatens a newly discovered species of octopod, nicknamed 'Casper'.
**The ALPHA experiment at CERN observes the light spectrum of antimatter for the first time.
*22 December
**Ebola virus disease found to be 70–100% prevented by rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, making it the first proven vaccine against the disease.
**The UK's National Health Service (NHS) announces that 10 blind patients will receive "Visual prosthesis, bionic eyes" to help treat an inherited form of blindness.
*26 December
**The genome of the common ash (''Fraxinus excelsior'') is sequenced for the first time.
**Cheetah populations are reported to be crashing, with just 7,100 left in the wild. The study authors warn that the animals are "much more vulnerable to extinction than was previously thought" and recommend a "paradigm shift in conservation".
**Researchers at Tufts University create Programmable matter, programmable silk-based materials with embedded, pre-designed functions.
*29 December
**
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
astronomers report the detection of two new objects which are both expected to pass safely by the Earth in January and February 2017: a "relatively large"
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...
named and a comet named C/2016 U1 (NEOWISE).
**NASA reveals a potential habitat design for colonists on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...
, which offers shielding from extreme temperatures and radiation by using inflatable domes covered in ice.
Deaths
January
* 24 January: Marvin Minsky, American cognitive scientist (b. 1927 in science, 1927).
March
* 17 March: Solomon Marcus, Romanians, Romanian mathematician (b. 1925 in science, 1925).
April
* 3 April: Stephen Jacobsen, American bioengineer and roboticist (b. 1940 in science, 1940).
* 19 April: Walter Kohn, American theoretical physicist, theoretical chemist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1923 in science, 1923).
* 30 April: Harry Kroto, British chemist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1939 in science, 1939)
May
* 15 May: André Brahic, French astrophysicist (discovered the rings of Neptune) (b. 1942 in science, 1942)
July
* 2 July: Rudolf E. Kálmán, Hungarian-born American electrical engineer (b. 1930 in science, 1930).
August
* 2 August: Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian chemist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1946 in science, 1946)
* 19 August: Donald Henderson, American epidemiologist (led effort that eradicated smallpox worldwide) (b. 1928 in science, 1928)
* 24 August: Roger Y. Tsien, Roger Tsien, American biochemist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1952 in science, 1952)
* 25 August: James Cronin, American particle physicist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1931 in science, 1931)
December
* 12 December: Esther Wilkins, American pioneer of dental hygiene (b. 1916 in science, 1916).
* 25 December: Vera Rubin, American astronomer (b. 1928 in science, 1928).
See also
*2016 in spaceflight
*List of emerging technologies
*List of years in science
*2016 in science fiction
References
External links
* {{Commons category-inline, 2016 in science
2016 in science,
21st century in science
2016-related lists