2017 In Science

A number of significant scientific events occurred in 2017. The United Nations declared 2017 the ''International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development''.

Events

January

* 4 January
** A study published in the journal ''Science Advances'' casts further doubt on the existence of a recent " pause" in global warming, with more evidence that ocean temperatures have been underestimated.
** After 60 wins and 0 losses over 7 days, Google reveals that a mysterious player of Go, named "Master", is actually an improved version of its AlphaGo AI.
** Researchers at Michigan State University demonstrate a chemical compound and potential new drug able to stop the spread of melanoma by 90%.
** NASA announces its two choices for the next Discovery Program missions – the ''Lucy'' mission, to visit several asteroids, including six Jupiter Trojans; and the '' Psyche'' mission, to visit the large metallic asteroid 16 Psyche.
* 5 January – A Japanese insurance firm, Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance, announces that 34 of its office workers will be replaced with IBM’s Watson AI.
* 6 January
** A large portion of the Larsen C ice shelf is reported to be on the verge of breaking away from Antarctica. It is expected to become one of the top 10 biggest icebergs ever recorded, leaving the whole shelf vulnerable to future collapse, which would raise global sea levels by 10cm.
** Researchers at MIT design one of the strongest lightweight materials known, by compressing and fusing flakes of graphene. The new material is highly porous. Computer simulations predict it is possible to make materials with a density of just 5 percent of steel, but 10 times stronger.
** NASA scientists release an image (also see related comparison image) of the Earth and Moon as viewed 127 million miles away from the planet Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. ( related image taken by the ''Curiosity'' rover on the surface of Mars)

* 9 January – Researchers at King's College London report a way of using an Alzheimer's drug to stimulate the renewal of living stem cells in tooth pulp.
* 10 January – Researchers discover that glia, not neurons, are most affected by brain aging.
* 11 January
** A new species of gibbon, named '' Hoolock tianxing'', is identified in southwest China.
** Carnegie Mellon University announces "Libratus", an artificial intelligence program designed to beat humans at poker.
* 12 January – Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute report the discovery of TZAP, a protein that binds the ends of chromosomes and determines how long telomeres can be.
* 14 January
** Researchers at the University of Sydney use big data to predict how a quantum system will change and to prevent its breakdown from occurring.
** SpaceX resumes flights, following a launch pad explosion in September 2016. A reusable Falcon 9 rocket successfully delivers 10 satellites into orbit for a client, Iridium, before returning to a landing pad in the ocean.
* 16 January
** Astronomers working on the Japanese '' Akatsuki'' space probe mission report detecting a possible gravity wave that occurred on the planet Venus in December 2015.
** Researchers publish evidence that humans first entered North America in around 24,000 BP (Before Present), during the height of the last ice age. This is 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

* 17 January – The Chinese government announces plans for the first prototype exascale supercomputer by the end of the year.
* 18 January
** Researchers at Harvard develop a customisable " soft robot" that fits around a heart and helps it beat, potentially offering a new treatment option for patients with heart failure.
** Independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that 2016 was the hottest year on record, at 0.99 °C (1.78 °F) above the mid-20th century global mean average. This follows record warmth in the two preceding years 2015 and 2014.
* 19 January
** A study published in ''Nature'' warns that some of the most important crops in the U.S. are at risk of "abrupt and substantial yield losses" from rising temperatures later this century, with harvests potentially declining by 20% for wheat, 40% for soybean and almost 50% for maize.
** Researchers at Northwestern University develop an AI system that performs at human levels on a standard visual intelligence test.

* 23 January
** Researchers demonstrate a prototype 3D printer that can print fully functional human skin.
** Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute create the first stable semisynthetic organism. This can hold two synthetic bases, called X and Y, in its genetic code indefinitely. The team says it could lead to entirely new life forms using synthetic DNA, with many potential uses in medicine.
* 26 January
** Researchers at the Salk Institute create the first human-pig hybrid embryo, containing genetic information from both species.
** Scientists at Harvard report creating a small amount of metallic hydrogen for the first time, a century after it was theorised. The claim is disputed.
* 27 January – A report from the EU's Joint Research Centre concludes that if global temperatures rise by 4 °C, the flood risk in countries representing more than 70% of the global population and of the global GDP will increase by more than 500%.
* 30 January – News reports that a new safe battery has been invented. It is based on solid lithium, and is claimed to have twice the storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries. It is featured on a newly released PBS NOVA TV program entitled '' Search for the Super Battery''.

February

* 1 February
** Researchers led by the University of Sussex publish the first practical blueprint for how to build a quantum computer.
** Researchers develop a new blue-phase liquid crystal that could triple the sharpness of TVs, computer screens, and other displays while also reducing the power needed to run the device.

* 6 February – The first stable helium compound is synthesized, Na₂He. Helium is the most unreactive element.
* 7 February
** A mysterious "white dwarf pulsar" is announced, the first known star of its kind, located 380 light years from Earth.
** Asteroid 2017 BQ6 passed within 6.6 lunar distances of Earth at 6:36 UT.
* 8 February
** The genome of the quinoa food crop is decoded by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
** NASA publishes a report outlining the mission goals of an uncrewed Europa surface lander and which instruments the probe may need.
* 9 February – Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology demonstrate a robotic drone bee able to pollinate flowers.
* 10 February
** A study in the journal ''Anthropocene Review'' concludes that human activity is changing the climate 170 times faster than natural processes.
** A study by the University of Buffalo, using four decades of evidence, finds no link between immigration and higher rates of crime.
* 14 February – A committee from the US National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine gives cautious backing to gene editing of human embryos.

* 15 February – A study published in ''Nature'' finds that oxygen levels in the oceans have declined by 2% globally in the last 50 years, due to warming and stratification.
* 16 February
** NASA's Dawn mission finds evidence of organic material on Ceres, the first clear detection of organic molecules from orbit on a main belt body. ( related image)
** Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin develop ultra-flexible, nanoelectronic thread (NET) brain probes, designed to achieve more reliable long-term neural recording than existing probes and without causing scar formation when implanted.
* 21 February – Scientists describe a technique to grow large quantities of inner ear progenitor cells that convert into hair cells, which could potentially treat hearing loss.
* 22 February – Astronomers announce the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets, which may all be in the habitable zone, orbiting TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star, slightly larger than the planet Jupiter, located about 40 light-years from Earth.

March

* 1 March – Researchers report evidence of possibly the oldest forms of life on Earth. Putative fossilized microorganisms were discovered in hydrothermal vent precipitates in the Nuvvuagittuq belt of Quebec, Canada, that may have lived as early as 4.280 billion years ago, not long after the oceans formed 4.4 billion years ago, and not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago.

* 2 March – The University of Alberta announces details of ''DeepStack'', a new artificial intelligence program able to beat professional human players at poker for the first time.
* 6 March – IBM announces "IBM Q", an initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computing systems.
* 7 March
** The Sentinel-2B satellite is launched as part of the European Space Agency's Copernicus programme.
** NASA's Cassini mission reveals new images of Pan, a small moon of Saturn, which is now shown to have a bizarre 'flying saucer' shape.
* 8 March – Scientists at the University of Texas report a new phase of matter, dubbed a time crystal, in which atoms move in a pattern that repeats in time rather than in space.
* 9 March
** Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science publish details of a single atom memory storage system.
** The CDH2 gene is found to be implicated in sudden death among young people and athletes.
** A study by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests that fast radio bursts in distant galaxies could be evidence of advanced alien technology.
* 10 March
** Scientists report that extraterrestrial dust particles have been identified to be all over planet Earth. According to one of the researchers, “Once I knew what to look for, I found them everywhere.”
** A study published in ''Science Advances'' concludes that the world's oceans are warming 13% faster than previously thought, and accelerating.
* 16 March – Scientists report that a potential drug candidate, trodusquemine, can restore some heart muscle function after a heart attack. As of 2017, no drug exists that is able to do this.

* 17 March
** A new drug, evolocumab, is shown to prevent heart attacks and strokes by dramatically cutting bad cholesterol.
** A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that CO₂ emissions have remained flat for the third year in a row, despite continued global economic growth.
* 22 March
** Scientists report a new way of classifying the dinosaur family tree, based on newer and more evidence than available earlier. According to the new classification, the original dinosaurs, arising 200 million years ago, were small, two-footed omnivorous animals with large grasping hands. Descendants (for the non-avian dinosaurs) lasted until 66 million years ago.
** NASA reports that sea ice extent has reached record lows at both the Arctic and Antarctic.
* 23 March – Dutch scientists report a drug that can reverse aspects of ageing in old mice – restoring their stamina, coat of fur and even some organ function – by flushing out "senescent" cells in the body that have stopped dividing. Human trials are planned.
* 24 March – Scientists at the University of New South Wales publish details of experiments on mice that suggest a treatment is possible for DNA damage from aging and radiation, based on the metabolite NAD+.
* 27 March – Scientists in Australia announce the discovery of the world's largest dinosaur footprint, measuring long. The previous record-holder was about long.
* 30 March – SpaceX conducts the world's first reflight of an orbital class rocket.

April

* 3 April – Researchers at the University of Manchester demonstrate a graphene-based sieve able to filter seawater, which could improve desalination technologies.
* 10 April
** Australia's Great Barrier Reef is reported to be experiencing a second consecutive mass coral bleaching event, affecting two-thirds of its area.
** Researchers at Washington State University demonstrate a fluid with negative mass.
* 11 April – The telescopes of the Event Horizon Telescope finish data-taking in their attempt to image the region close to a black hole. Data analysis is expected to take several months.
* 12 April – University of Waterloo researchers capture the first composite image of a galaxies-connecting dark matter bridge.
* 13 April
** NASA scientists announce that molecular hydrogen has been detected in plumes erupting from Enceladus, moon of the planet Saturn, suggesting possible hydrothermal activity, and the possible consequent existence of primitive life forms.
** The University of California, Berkeley, creates a device that pulls water from dry air, powered only by the Sun. Even under conditions of relatively low (20–30 percent) humidity, it is able to produce 2.8 liters of water over a 12-hour period.
* 19 April – Astronomers report the discovery of LHS 1140b, a rocky "super-Earth" in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star, LHS 1140, which astronomers say is among the best ever candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life.

* 20 April – Researchers from the Medical Research Council (United Kingdom) led by Giovanna Mallucci identify two drugs, trazodone and dibenzoylmethane (DBM), that could potentially block cell death in all neurodegenerative brain diseases.
* 22 April – The March for Science takes place, timed to coincide with Earth Day.
* 24 April – Wax moth larvae are reported to be able to biodegrade polyethylene, one of the toughest, most resilient, and most used plastics. The creatures may be a solution to the growing problem of plastic waste.
* 25 April – Researchers in the U.S. demonstrate an artificial womb-like device on lambs, which could one day be used for saving premature human babies.
* 26 April – Scientists report evidence suggesting that ancient humans were present at the Cerutti Mastodon site on the North American continent 130,000 years ago, much earlier than 15,000 years ago, thought previously based on genetic studies.

May

* 1 May – The University of Utah reveals a new robotic drill system for greatly speeding up surgical procedures. One type of complex cranial surgery could be done in a fiftieth of the normal time, decreasing from two hours to just two and a half minutes.
* 4 May
** The European x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) produces its first beams of x-rays.
** The first synthetic retina using soft biological tissues is created by a student at the University of Oxford.
* 9 May
** Scientists report newer findings, two adults and a child, of Homo naledi, an extinct species of hominin, in a second chamber, named "Lesedi", of the "Rising Star Cave" system. This second chamber is near the first earlier chamber, named "Dinaledi". In addition, remains of Homo naledi have been reported to be dated "between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago".
** Scientists publish evidence that the earliest known life on land may have been found in 3.48-billion-year-old geyserite and other related mineral deposits (often found around hot springs and geysers) uncovered in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia.

* 10 May
** Researchers at the University of Minnesota demonstrate a 3D-printed ‘bionic skin’ that could give robots a sense of touch, or lead to electronics printed on real human skin.
** A study of nearly 6,000 adults finds that high levels of physical activity equate to a nine-year biological aging advantage. Those who engaged in a minimum of 30 to 40 minutes of running, five days a week, were found to have longer telomere lengths.
* 15 May – Researchers report that glints of light observed from Earth, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, have been found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere. The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.
* 16 May
** SESAME, a synchrotron light source in Jordan built by a collaboration including Israel, the Palestinian National Authority and Iran, is inaugurated.
** ARM and the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE) announce plans to develop a "brain-implantable" system-on-a-chip (SoC) for bi-directional brain-computer interfaces (BBCI). The 10-year project is aimed at solving neurodegenerative disorders.
* 17 May – Human blood stem cells are grown in the laboratory for the first time by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital.

* 18 May – Researchers publish evidence of a rapid greening in the Antarctica region over the last 50 years. Mosses that once grew less than 1mm a year are now found to be growing more than 3mm a year on average.
** An Australian-Chinese research team creates the world's thinnest hologram, fabricated using a simple and fast direct laser writing system, with potential for use in a range of electronic products.
* 20 May – Astronomers report that Tabby's Star, about 1,300 light-years from Earth, has again begun dimming unusually; several explanations have been considered, including the possibility that intelligent extraterrestrial life may have been constructing a Dyson swarm. More dimming events happened in the following months.
Update ( Tabby's Star): as of 5 September 2017, a new dimming event had begun, the largest (of four) of the year, producing as much as a 3% dimming in star brightness.
* 23 May
** Researchers in Harvard University report that eating up to six bars of chocolate a week could decrease the risk of a potentially fatal heart condition by approximately one quarter.
** Scientists propose a new type of astronomical object called a "synestia" – a huge, spinning, donut-shaped mass of hot, vaporised rock, formed as planet-sized objects smash into each other.

* 24 May
** The launch date of NASA's '' Psyche'' probe is brought forward, to target a more efficient trajectory, launching in 2022 and arriving in 2026 with a Mars gravity assist in 2023.
** Researchers in Switzerland create artificial viruses that can be used to target cancer. These designer viruses alert the immune system and cause it to send killer cells to help fight the tumor. The results, published in ''Nature Communications'', provide a basis for innovative cancer treatments.
* 25 May – An article in ''Science'' magazine claims the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission relied on faulty analysis to justify its refusal to adopt a critical measure for protecting Americans from nuclear-waste fires at dozens of reactor sites around the country. Radioactivity from such a fire could force approximately 8 million people to relocate and result in $2 trillion in damages.
* 26 May – Construction begins on the European Extremely Large Telescope.
* 27 May – At the Future of Go Summit in China, Google's DeepMind AlphaGo AI program beats the world's number one Go player, Ke Jie, in the third of three matches.
* 30 May
** Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute announce a way to structurally modify vancomycin to make the antibiotic more powerful.
** A survey of 352 experts in artificial intelligence finds that experts believe there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks within 45 years and of automating all human jobs in 120 years.
* 31 May – Muon g-2, a precision experiment to measure the g-factor of muons, starts taking data.

June

* 1 June
** SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk publishes
Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species
', his plans for the future colonisation of Mars.
** Astronomers report the detection of a third gravitational wave, named GW170104, thereby further supporting the theory of general relativity presented in 1916 by Albert Einstein.
** NASA reports that the ''Curiosity'' rover provided evidence of an ancient lake in Gale crater on Mars that could have been favorable for microbial life; the ancient lake was stratified, with shallows rich in oxidants and depths poor in oxidants; and, the ancient lake provided many different types of microbe-friendly environments at the same time. NASA further reports that the ''Curiosity'' rover will continue to explore higher and younger layers of Mount Sharp in order to determine how the lake environment in ancient times on Mars became the drier environment in more modern times.
* 5 June – Astronomers at The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University have detected a planet that is so hot, its heat rivals most stars. With a day-side temperature of 4,600 Kelvin (more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit), planet KELT-9b is hotter than most stars, and only 1,200 Kelvin (about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than our own sun.
* 7 June – Scientists report evidence, based on fossil remains found in the western part of North Africa in Morocco at Jebel Irhoud, that ''Homo sapiens'' may have originated about 300,000 years ago, over 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.
* 9 June – Researchers at the University of Zurich report the creation of the largest virtual universe ever simulated, consisting of 25 billion galaxies generated from 2 trillion digital particles.
* 12 June
** Researchers at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam identify seven risk genes for insomnia.
** Two new moons – S/2016 J1 and S/2017 J1 – are reported to be orbiting Jupiter, bringing the gas giant's total number of known natural satellites to 69.

* 15 June
** Chinese scientists report the successful transmission of entangled photons between suborbital space and Earth, using the satellite Micius.
** A study by the universities of Coventry and Radboud finds that meditation, yoga and Tai Chi can 'reverse' the molecular reactions in DNA which cause ill-health and depression.
* 18 June – The European Society of Cardiology reports a vaccine that lowers cholesterol in mice, which may offer hope of immunising against cardiovascular disease.
* 19 June – Astronomers report evidence of a possible tenth Mars-sized planet residing at the edge of the Solar System.
* 20 June
** NASA's Kepler Space Telescope team publish 219 new exoplanet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star's habitable zone.
** The European Space Agency confirms the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) as the third large-class mission in its science programme, with launch expected in 2034.
* 22 June – A study of snail neurons, published in ''Current Biology'', suggests memories that trigger anxiety and PTSD could be 'erased' without affecting normal memory of past events.
* 26 June
** Research by Cornell University suggests that rising sea levels will displace 1.4 billion people by 2060 and 2 billion by 2100.
** Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), a satellite record of lower tropospheric temperature, undergoes a major revision, showing nearly 30% faster warming since 1979.
* 29 June – A study published in the journal ''Science'' concludes that unmitigated climate change will exacerbate inequality in the USA, with southern states losing up to 20 percent of their income by century's end.
* 30 June – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) reveals plans to send an astronaut to the Moon by 2030.

July

* 1 July – Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham warn that brainwave-sensing headsets are vulnerable to hacking and could reveal a user's passwords if their brainwaves are being monitored.
* 4 July – Scientists report evidence that homo sapiens may have migrated out of Africa 270,000 years ago, much earlier than the 70,000 years ago thought previously.
* 5 July – A study in the journal ''Science Advances'' shows that climate sensitivity is greater than previously thought, and that lower estimates of future temperatures do not take into account long-term patterns of warming.
* 6 July
** Physicists at CERN Large Hadron Collider report the detection of the particle (with the Greek letter Xi), a new hadron, a composite particle containing two charm quarks and one up quark.
** Researchers report that the surface on the planet Mars may be more toxic to microorganisms, especially a common terrestrial type, ''Bacillus subtilis'', than thought earlier. This is based on studies with perchlorates, common on Mars, in a simulated Martian ultraviolet atmosphere.
* 7 July – Researchers at Queensland University of Technology announce the development of a genetically modified banana with higher levels of vitamin A, which could improve the nutritional content of bananas in Uganda.
* 10 July
** NASA's Juno spacecraft obtains close-range images of Jupiter's red spot.
** Scientists from Stanford University publish evidence that a sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is already underway.
* 11 July – Researchers at George Washington University reveal a new prototype solar cell with 44.5 percent efficiency.

* 12 July
** A huge iceberg, one of the largest ever recorded, detaches from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica.
** The discovery of the smallest star able to sustain fusion, EBLM J0555-57Ab, is announced; its diameter is just slightly larger than Saturn.
** Scientists at Harvard use the CRISPR gene-editing system to store a GIF animation in the DNA of bacteria.
** Research published in Royal Society Open Science reveals that six of the world's large carnivores – the African wild dog, cheetah, Ethiopian wolf, lion, red wolf and tiger – have lost over 90% of their historic range.
* 14 July – Astrophysicists report that tardigrade micro-animal

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