The year 2007 involved many significant scientific events and discoveries, some of which are listed below.

Events, discoveries and inventions

*9 January – Apple Inc.'s first iPhone smartphone is announced by

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macint ...

in San Francisco; it is released in the United States on 29 June. *12 January – Comet

McNaught McNaught or MacNaught or Macnaught is a Scottish surname deriving from ''MacNeachdan'' which is a Gaelic patronymic for the Pictish name ''Nechdan'' meaning 'Pure'. It was anglicised as ''Macnaughten'' and variations of the name have led to Macnaug ...

reaches perihelion and becomes visible from Earth during daylight. *14 January – Scientists at the Roslin Institute announce they have genetically engineered

chickens The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

to lay eggs containing cancer-fighting proteins. *7 February – The second " Berlin Patient", Timothy Ray Brown, is given a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying the

CCR5-Δ32 C-C chemokine receptor type 5, also known as CCR5 or CD195, is a protein on the surface of white blood cells that is involved in the immune system as it acts as a receptor for chemokines. In humans, the ''CCR5'' gene that encodes the CCR5 ...

allele, which cures his HIV/AIDS. *28 February – The ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research ...

'' space probe makes a gravitational slingshot around Jupiter to change its trajectory towards Pluto. *3–4 March – A total lunar eclipse occurs, visible in some parts of the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

and Asia, and in all of Europe and Africa. *19 March – A partial solar eclipse occurs, visible in Asia. *10 April – Spectroscopic analysis of HD 209458 b, an extrasolar planet, provides the first evidence of atmospheric water vapor beyond the Solar System. *24 April – The potentially habitable exoplanet Gliese 581 c is discovered in the constellation Libra. *27 April – US researchers simulate half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer. * May – High Resolution Fly's Eye Observatory (HiRes) and Pierre Auger Observatory present their results suggesting a confirmation for the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit, the theoretical limit for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays interacting with the Cosmic Microwave Background. *5 June – NASA's ''

MESSENGER ''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...

'' spacecraft makes its second flyby of Venus en route to

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

, which it reaches in 2011. *2 July – Venus and

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

are in conjunction, with a separation of 46

arcsecond A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

s. *23 August – Chris Messina proposes use of the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

on Twitter. *28 August – A total

lunar eclipse A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow. Such alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six months, during the full moon phase, when the Moon's orbital plane is closest to the plane of the Earth ...

occurs, visible in some parts of the

and Asia, and all of Australasia and the Pacific Ocean. *11 September – A partial solar eclipse occurs, visible in southern areas of South America. *27 September – NASA's '' Dawn'' spacecraft is launched, beginning its journey to the asteroid belt objects Vesta and Ceres. It reached Vesta in 2011, and Ceres in 2015. *24 October ** Comet

17P/Holmes Comet Holmes (official designation: 17P/Holmes) is a periodic comet in the Solar System, discovered by the British amateur astronomer Edwin Holmes on November 6, 1892. Although normally a very faint object, Holmes became notable during its Octo ...

suddenly brightens from 17 to 2.8 magnitude. ** Chang'e 1, the first satellite in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, is launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center; on 5 November it enters

lunar orbit In astronomy, lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by spacecraft around the Moon. The ...

. *5 November – The Open Handset Alliance launches the

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

mobile operating system.

Prizes

Abel Prize

*2007 Abel Prize: S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan

Nobel Prize

*2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Mario Capecchi, Oliver Smithies and Martin Evans *2007 Nobel Prize in Physics: Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg *2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Gerhard Ertl

Deaths

Arthur Kornberg (30828410210) - restoration1

*20 February – F. Albert Cotton (b.

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...

), American chemist known for research on transition metal chemistry *22 February –

Lucille Farrier Stickel Lucille Farrier Stickel (January 11, 1915 – February 22, 2007) was an American wildlife toxicologist and director of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center from 1972 to 1982. Her research focused extensively on contaminants in wildlife ecosystem ...

(b.

1915 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction". *January 1 ...

), American wildlife toxicologist *23 March – Paul Cohen (b.

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...

), American mathematician, winner of the 1966

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

*27 March – Paul Lauterbur (b.

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

), American chemist, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in developing

magnetic resonance imaging Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wave ...

*4 April – Karen Spärck Jones (b.

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * ...

), English computer scientist *7 July – Dame Anne McLaren (b.

1927 Events January * January 1 – The British Broadcasting ''Company'' becomes the British Broadcasting ''Corporation'', when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith becomes the first Director-General. * January 7 * ...

), English developmental biologist and her ex-husband Donald Michie (b.

1923 Events January–February * January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory). * January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, t ...

), British AI researcher (automobile accident *23 July – Ernst Otto Fischer (b.

1918 This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events ...

), German winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering work in the area of

organometallic chemistry Organometallic chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and so ...

*12 August – Ralph Asher Alpher (b.

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

), American cosmologist *29 September – Katsuko Saruhashi (b.

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

), Japanese geochemist *26 October – Arthur Kornberg (b.

), American

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

, winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of DNA

References