Annual Roundup: Here’s What Scientists Are Saying

Annual Roundup- January 2017

We’re almost through the first week of January, I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of lamenting (or celebration, whichever one is your perspective). 2016 was one hell of a year. Losses, tragedies, lessons, knock-you-off-your-feet-side-swipe-sort-of-slap you-in-the-face WTF?? Individually, as a collective, a nation, a globe…

Truth be told, I’ve been a little quiet the last few months. You might have noticed, maybe not. On the backend, it’s been gangbusters and I’ve been completely immersed in the work. As eye-opening revelations, distinctions, concepts, and scientific findings have come into my world, you’ve not been far from my mind. Multiple times have I thought, “Oh! This topic would make for an amazing article!” Unfortunately, I’ve had extremely little time to process, translate, and deliver.

I’ve got some really exciting, really good stuff on the horizon – stuff I’m *really* excited to share in the coming months. But in the meantime, I wanted to give you this frame as a launching point for the “next”… 2017.

This comes directly from New Scientist, December 2016 issue – Letter From the Editor.  It was so amusing that I thought maybe you’d appreciate this as inspiration for what’s possible.

THE year began with news that a beech marten (not, as initially reported, a weasel) had shut down the Large Hadron Collider, just after it reported a mysterious blip (not, as initially reported, a new particle). More satisfyingly, astronomers revealed the “chirp” of two black holes colliding, as overheard by the most sensitive instrument on Earth.

Thinning ice is letting daylight pass deep into the polar oceans. Bridges built in Bermuda have radically altered the genitalia of mosquitofish. 

A computer program that writes “Hello World” was inserted into the DNA of a tobacco plant.

A primatologist speculated that chimps filling trees with stones were creating a “shrine”; humpback whales were seen “saving” seals from orcas; ducklings raised with pyramids and spheres turned out to be capable of abstract thought.

Most of us humans, meanwhile, turned out to be patchworks of cells, including some from our mothers, children, and siblings. Our microbial clouds reveal who we are and who we hang out with. And hundreds of our genes probably spark to life after we die.

English is set to become the world’s lingua franca – but in forms unfamiliar to native speakers. A scientist who wears a fungal hat claimed magic mushrooms stopped his stutter. A woman paralyzed by the same disease as Stephen Hawking learned to use a brain implant to communicate by thought alone.

[New Scientist] reported all these stories and many more this year. Even the most frivolous sounding has serious implications, whatever politicians with axes to grind and pennies to pinch may claim.

In a year when the world often seemed impossible to understand, this torrent of discoveries reminds us that there are people who strive every day to help us make sense of its enormous complexity. And thankfully, they will never stop striving no matter what obstacles – political, financial or even wayward predatory mammals – stand in their way.

I don’t use a triple beam balance, microscope, or petri dish to help describe the world as it is, but I do use a hell of a lot of curiosity, contemplation, and conversations to vision out the meaning we want to live into. In light of what we discovered last year, let’s all keep striving to make the most of this year. Curious what you really want to live into? Connect with me here.

Excited to see where the curiosity takes us!
Amy
xo

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