31st December 2022 2022 highlights in science and technology As 2022 draws to a close, we look back at some of the most notable advances in science and technology. This year has seen remarkable developments in artificial intelligence, an inflection point for quantum computing, progress in aging research, a number of exciting discoveries in astronomy, a potentially revolutionary new material, and many more breakthroughs. These were our top 20 most viewed blogs of 2022, in reverse order. See you in 2023!
20th February 2022 Changing diet can add more than a decade to life expectancy In February, a study in PLOS Medicine found that changing from a typical Western diet to an optimised diet with more legumes, whole grains and nuts, and less red and processed meat, can add more than a decade to life expectancy. Read more »
18th August 2022 20 exaFLOP supercomputer proposed for 2025 In August, chip company Tachyum unveiled its proposal for a 20 exaFLOP supercomputer – 20 times faster than the world's current record holder – to be developed by 2025. This would be based on Prodigy, its flagship product and described as the world's first "universal" processor. Read more »
14th June 2022 Google engineer believes chatbot AI is sentient 2022 proved to be a remarkable year for artificial intelligence. Amid the hype and speculation, a senior software engineer at Google claimed that a new chatbot called LaMDA had achieved a form of sentience. Read more »
10th November 2022 433-qubit quantum processor revealed This year marked the beginning of a major inflection point for quantum computing. An alternative to traditional or "classical" computing, quantum computing promises many orders of magnitude more calculating power, which could solve previously impossible mathematical problems. In November, IBM unveiled its 'Osprey' quantum processor, more than tripling the previous qubit count. The company also revealed Quantum System Two, a new modular and flexible system for combining multiple processors, as seen in the video below. Read more »
30th May 2022 World's first exascale supercomputer is officially confirmed After years of delays, the U.S. Department of Energy finally completed its development of Frontier, the world's first supercomputer to exceed a billion billion floating point operations per second (FLOPS), known as an exaFLOP. This is 1,000 times faster than the record holder in 2008. Read more »
26th June 2022 First solar-powered car Lightyear, a high-tech Dutch company, premiered the finalised version of its long-awaited vehicle, a solar-powered car. Read more »
10th March 2022 Aging reversed in middle-aged and elderly mice In March, a team at the Salk Institute reported a way of safely and effectively reversing the aging process in both middle-aged and elderly mice, by partially "resetting" cells to more youthful states. Read more »
27th August 2022 First detection of CO2 in atmosphere of exoplanet The James Webb Space Telescope captured the first clear evidence for CO2 in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System. Read more »
24th June 2022 NASA plans nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030 In June, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy announced a collaboration to advance space-based nuclear technologies. Read more »
28th February 2022 Next-generation geothermal tech will drill deeper than ever before In February, Quaise Energy announced $40 million in Series A financing to develop a new drilling technology. If successful in the years ahead, this will reach depths of 20 km and could enable geothermal power to be accessed almost anywhere in the world. Read more »
17th February 2022 AI may be "slightly conscious" As mentioned already, 2022 proved to be a crazy year for AI. In addition to the Google engineer mentioned earlier, another prominent industry figure made headlines and sparked debates on both technology and philosophy. Ilya Sutskever, Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of OpenAI, claimed that the latest generation of neural networks are now large enough to be considered "slightly conscious". Read more »
13th March 2022 "Ultra-intelligence" computer planned for 2024 In March, UK-based AI chipmaker Graphcore announced a project called The Good Computer. When completed, this will be capable of handling neural network models with 500 trillion parameters, nearly 3,000 times larger than GPT-3 and more than quadruple the synapses in a human brain. Read more »
8th April 2022 Age of skin cells reversed by 30 years Researchers in the UK rejuvenated a 53-year-old woman's skin cells, so they became the equivalent of a 23-year-old's. Read more »
26th March 2022 Robot peels banana with deep learning In March, researchers in Japan developed a new machine learning system for a two-armed robot – enabling it to identify, pick up, and peel a banana.
8th July 2022 New record solar cell efficiency In July, tandem perovskite-silicon solar cells exceeded 30% efficiency for the first time. These are part of the "emerging" class of solar. Read more »
3rd July 2022 World's first quantum computer integrated circuit In addition to a huge increase in qubit counts (mentioned earlier), this year saw another major milestone in quantum computing. Researchers in Australia demonstrated the world's first quantum computer integrated circuit. Read more »
10th August 2022 Super-Earth found "skimming" habitable zone of red dwarf This year, astronomers in Japan reported the discovery of a super-Earth around the red dwarf Ross 508, which lies only 37 light years from Earth. Part of the planet's elliptical orbit takes it within the star's habitable zone, where liquid water may exist. Read more »
10th June 2022 Whole human genome sequencing for $100 Genome sequencing has continued to plummet in cost, at a rate even faster than Moore's Law. This year, a biotech company emerged from stealth mode with a new high-throughput, low-cost sequencing platform that it claims can deliver a whole genome for just $100. Read more »
27th November 2022 Photochemistry is confirmed on an exoplanet In November, scientists confirmed that the James Webb Space Telescope had detected a range of signatures – including, for the first time, sulfur dioxide – in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called WASP-39b. While this particular planet is unlikely to be habitable, the research could be helpful in finding evidence of potential life on a more Earth-like planet in subsequent studies. Read more »
17th December 2022 Scientists find material with highest toughness ever recorded Scientists in the U.S. measured the highest toughness ever recorded, of any material, while investigating a metallic alloy made from chromium, cobalt, and nickel (CrCoNi). The toughness of this material is 500 megapascals square root metres, which is five times greater than the best steels. Read more »
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