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Atmospheric heating from the Sun accelerates the action of weathering, moving carbon dioxide CO2 from the atmosphere into the oceans. The concentration of CO2 drops so much that photosynthesis becomes impossible and most plants on Earth become extinct.

The pH of the oceans will drop to 7.8. It was 8.2 in 1800, at the beginning of the 21st century it is 8.1. A decline of only 0.1 points, being the logarithmic scale, means a 30% greater acidity. In 2100 the oceans will be

The saturation state of the oceans with respect to aragonite (the most soluble form of calcium carbonate) falls to 3.0. It was 4.0 in 1800. The energy required for calcification increases, and the calcification process of corals falls dramatically as a result.

First fossil chromosomes discovered in mammoth skin in Siberia. Skin samples from the 52,000-year-old animal have revealed chromosomes preserved in their original 3D configuration: something never seen before with ancient DNA.

Google and DeepMind release AlphaFold, a huge database of about 200 million 3D proteins: it is thus understood that Artificial Intelligences are also very good at predicting and imagining protein structures that can stay together, function and be efficient.

Israel declares itself out of the Covid-19 pandemic, with 99% of the population vaccinated with the first dose and almost 50% with the second as well.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approves the use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine.

Israel, the first country in terms of progress in the mass vaccination campaign, reaches 2/3 of the population vaccinated with the first dose, and half of them with the second dose. But what is more important is that we see a marked decline in Covid-19

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approves the use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approves the use of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. A few days earlier, Great Britain, Canada, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia had already approved it.

Singapore is the first country in the world to approve the sale of lab-grown meat. It gives the green light to lab-grown chicken meat from the American company Eat Just, created without slaughtering any animals, but by growing animal muscle stem cells in the lab.

The English company DeepMind reveals the solution to a large part of the problem of how to predict how proteins fold in 3D to take shape, a shape that is crucial to determine their properties, including those for developing new drugs. The whole thing is

The Russian anti-Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik-V, developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute, is 95% effective according to studies conducted in Russia, Venezuela, Belarus on 22 thousand people in the first phase and 19 thousand in the second.

The Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca announces that its anti-Covid-19 vaccine developed with Oxford University is completing the final phases of clinical trials with an efficacy of 70% (as an average of 2 different administration methods, one with 90% efficacy on 2741 people, and the other 62%

The American company Moderna announces that the anti-Covid-19 vaccine it is testing has completed the final stages of clinical trials, and has proven to be at least 94% effective.

The American company Pfizer announces that the anti-Covid-19 vaccine it is testing has completed the final stages of clinical trials, and has proven to be at least 90% effective.

In northern Myanmar (formerly Burma), Lida Xing (of the China University of Geosciences, Beijing), documents the discovery of the skull of a tiny bird-dinosaur (Oculidentavis khaungraae) weighing only 2 grams, a skull well preserved in amber with various soft tissues. It is very rare to

American scientists are able to restore some brain function in pig brains 4 to 10 hours after the animal’s head has been severed.

Researchers at Manchester University believe they have identified the smell of Parkinson’s, and in particular the molecules on the skin linked to its early development, potentially allowing it to be identified years before its full-blown onset.

Some studies by Cortexyme and various universities come to the conclusion that the bacteria found in the brain affected by ALS are not the result of the disease, but the cause. It is Porphyromonas gingivalis, which initially arises in the gums, and then gradually proliferates

Ergin Beiret and his team use CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in mice to specifically delete genes that cause aging, without altering other gene activity. The lifespan of the mice increases by about 25%.

Efforts, including the leading ones by the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation, to eradicate polio worldwide, show incredible results: the number of total cases dropped from 350 thousand in 1988 to just 33 in 2018. It was endemic in 125 countries in 1988 and in

Bayer buys Monsanto for $66 billion

Africa. A census of the continent’s elephant population counts them at just over 350,000. In 1979 there were 1.3 million, 10 million in 1973, 26 million in the 16th century.

University of North Carolina. The molecular “killer” that kills movement neurons in many patients affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has been unmasked: it is an extremely unstable and reactive protein aggregate, which “poisons” the central nervous system leading to paralysis. The study is published

Monsanto Sells $1 Billion Lawsuit in DuPont Dispute Over Genetically Modified Grains. St. Louis-based Monsanto accused Johnston, Iowa-based Pioneer Hi-Bred (later DuPont Pioneer) of infringing Monsanto’s patents on Roundup Ready Crops, which are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate.

Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, discovers potentially tiny fossil life forms on several rare meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. Some of the fossils he uncovered resemble bacteria called Velox Titanospirillum on Earth. Others are completely unknown, potential aliens.

NASA-funded research at MonLake demonstrates the ability of life to thrive in abundance of arsenic, which in the bacterium GFAJ-1 actually replaces phosphorus as the basic building block of life. Arsenic was previously considered a poison to life, because, with properties very similar to phosphorus,

David Sands of Montana State University discovers that the bacterium Pseudomonas Syringae is the trigger for the crystallization of water droplets, which then fall as rain. Pseudomonas Syringae is found on plants all over the world. When it ends up in the atmosphere with evaporating

Geneticist Craig Venter’s team assembled the genome of a simple bacterium from pieces of synthetic DNA, and then inserted the DNA into another empty bacterium. The team, which also included biologists Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchinson, rebooted the system and the cell literally came to

Kim Peek, the “idiot savant” from the 1988 film “Rain Man” played by Dustin Hoffman, dies. He was 58 years old and had been affected since birth by the so-called “sage syndrome”: a very rare neurological disorder that occurs in 10% of people with autism.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center announces that glycine, one of 20 amino acids, has been found in dust collected by the StarDust spacecraft from comet Wild 2. This has long been suspected, but this is the first experimental finding.

The Car4 receptor, which senses carbon dioxide in carbonated drinks, was discovered in sour-tasting cells located on the tongue.

The scientific journal Current Biology publishes the first analyses of an experiment in a tardigrade colony that were taken into the vacuum of circumterrestrial space and exposed to direct ionizing solar radiation. The Russian Foton M3 probe is used in collaboration with ESA. The vacuum

A diabetic girl dies in Italy because her daily insulin doses were replaced by herbal and homeopathic products. The girl is 16 years old.

Cassini probe records presence of organic compounds in Enceladus geyser plumes

Mponeng gold mine, in the north of South Africa. 4 km below the surface, biologists discover a species of bacteria that lives without light or oxygen, in a community composed exclusively of other similar ones and that uses only, as a source of energy, the

In the period 1948 – 1973 the Soviet Union, despite its formal adherence to the 1946 treaty for the regulation of whaling, kills 180 thousand whales more than the formally accepted limit. The Eubalena japonica (North Pacific Right Whale) for example is almost exterminated and

The Russian Foton M3 probe in collaboration with ESA, carries into orbit a colony of tardigrades that will be carried into the vacuum of circumterrestrial space and exposed to direct ionizing solar radiation. The vacuum will have almost no effect on them, while ionizing radiation

University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Professor Ekaterina Dadachova studies some specimens of Cladosporium sphaerospermum, Cryptococcus neoformans and Wangiella dermatitidis, three species of fungi collected from reactor number 4 of the Lenin power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, discovering their ability to grow faster in environments rich in

Adwaita, a giant Aldabra tortoise who was the pet of Clive of India, dies. She was introduced to Calcutta Zoo in 1876. She had been born in 1756, 250 years earlier.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the use of Brain Pacemakers as a treatment for depression.

The number of malaria cases declines by as much as 75%. Between 2014 and 2016 alone, 582 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets were delivered, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The journal Nature estimates that 450 million cases were prevented between 2000 and 2015.

Sweet taste receptor also discovered in the gastrointestinal tract

An article in Nature shows that liquid water loses memory of correlations in its structure in less than 50 femtoseconds (or 0.00000000000005 seconds): a very short memory… In 1988, again in Nature, an article by the French scientist Jacques Benveniste was published in which he

Researchers from the National Science Museum of Japan and the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association took the first photos of a live giant squid in its natural habitat, at a depth of 900 m. They found it by following the route of sperm whales, their main

Bitter taste receptor also discovered in the gastrointestinal tract

Geobiologist John Parkes examines mud samples taken from deep on the ocean floor east of Newfoundland. The prokaryotes found (alive) divide at a rate of once a century. Each organism could be several million years old.

Hydrogen-feeding bacteria discovered deep in Earth’s crust

NASA finds more fossil life on two more Martian meteorites: Nakhla and Shergotty, 1.3 billion years old and 170 million years old respectively, and confirms signs of life on ALH84001; also confirms the presence of underground liquid water on Europa and Callisto and, in the

Deborah Kelley’s team discovers a hydrothermal field called Lost City near the North Atlantic Ridge at 30 degrees North, literally invaded by micro and macro-organisms of all kinds that live in these sources of methane and hydrogen; the structure is characterized by 60m high towers

Russell Vreeland and colleagues at West Chester University in Pennsylvania announce that they have resurrected Bacillus Permians bacteria found 600m underground in Carlsbad, New Mexico: they reactivate in the presence of water after 250 million years, having survived all this time and 2 mass extinctions

The national trial of the Di Bella treatment in Italy is over. It involved 1155 patients (386 experimental and 769 observational) affected by various tumors. 97.5% of the patients died or withdrew from the study. In none of the patients was the disappearance of the

Another population of coelacanths (Latimeria chalumnae, a crossopterygian fish thought to have become extinct 100 million years ago) has been discovered off the coast of Sulawesi Island in Indonesia.

For the first time, premeditated group murderous behavior by chimpanzees has been observed in the African jungle, a peculiarity that was thought to be typical only of the human race.

The hoax of a link between vaccines and autism begins to spread. Andrew Wakefield, an English doctor, publishes an article in The Lancet about it. The article will then be recognized as not scientifically correct (no control cases had been used) and withdrawn, but the

Ji Qiang, Ji Shu-An, Philip Currie and Mark Norell publish in Nature an article on the two feathered dinosaurs Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx, probably an intermediate stage between scales and feathers.

The national trial of the Di Bella treatment begins in Italy. It involves 1155 patients (386 experimental and 769 observational) affected by various tumors. It closes in 1999 with 97.5% of the patients who have died or withdrawn from the study. In none of the

Iodized salt is banned in India. It is obtained by adding iodine to table salt, to prevent birth defects and mental retardation, caused by iodine deficiency. In India, it is mistakenly considered an interference of Western science, which also causes tumors and “bad mood”, and

Off the coast of South America, a very loud underwater sound is recorded by microphones placed on the seabed. The sound is called Bloop and is much louder than even the heaviest whale can produce. This has given rise to speculation that even larger beings

A Tokyo hospital announces that it has discovered a strain of staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to every known type of antibiotic

Feathered dinosaur fossils found. Confirmation presented to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The species is named Sinosauropteryx (Chinese winged lizard).

Possible signs of bacterial life found on the 1.9 kg meteorite of Martian origin ALH84001. The initial enthusiasm (supported by a press conference by President Clinton) will soon give way to other scientific interpretations, which do not imply life. Despite the lack of convincing evidence

Vatican Promotes Darwinian Evolution from “Hypothesis” to “Theory of Science”

Monsanto researchers in France, looking for molecules similar to aspartame but without its allergenicity, discover Neotame, 8000 times sweeter than sugar

First cases recognized of deadly variant of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD) thought to be a consequence of BSE (mad cow disease)

Fossil Record 2 is published on the Internet with 7189 families of extinct animals and plants and 1083 families of extinct insects

Robert Folk of the University of Texas at Austin, draws scientific attention to tiny spheroidal and ovoid objects found in sedimentary rocks found in the hot springs of Viterbo; they could in fact be fossil nanobacteria, calcified remains of organisms 30nm in size (while modern

commission of inquiry condemns the Tuskgee experiment carried out in the health center of Macon County, Alabama, since 1932. In practice, they analyzed the evolution of untreated syphilis in 600 black farmer patients, 399 of whom were sick. People were injected with a serum, in

American biologists Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman received the Nobel Prize for their studies in the 1980s, which led to the discovery that certain types of RNA can behave like enzymes towards themselves by cutting themselves in two and stitching themselves back together, that is,

In the Southern Hemisphere, the population of blue whales has been reduced, due to relentless hunting, to only 500 individuals, from the 250 thousand that there were at the beginning of the 20th century. The bodies of the whales are used to make margarine, soap,

French scientist Jacques Benveniste publishes a study in the journal Nature in which he believes that homeopathy causes a reaction in some blood cells. However, it will not be possible to repeat the results of the study in other laboratories. James Randi, a famous illusionist

American Gertrude Belle Elion receives the Nobel Prize for developing an innovative method for synthesizing medicines. She thus contributes to saving 5 million lives (estimate updated at the beginning of the 21st century)

Richard Lenski of the University of Michigan in East Lansing begins an experiment lasting over a decade with Escherichia coli bacteria, which he leaves to evolve in constant conditions. By 2010, he has produced more than 50,000 generations. This is the Long-term Evolution Experiment, which

Olavi Kajander of the University of Kuopio in Finland notices ultra-small particles inside many mammalian cells; about 50nm in size, they are about a tenth of the smallest known ordinary bacteria; Kajander later hypothesizes that they are living organisms that thrive in urine and cause

Weiskrantz discovers that the visual cortex (located in the occipital part – back – of the encephalon – brain -) is not the only region responsible for vision: there are other small areas that allow the patient to guess what he is seeing.

Based on the discoveries of American biologists Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman (certain types of RNA can multiply without the help of proteins) Walter Gilbert hypothesizes the RNA World, that is, first the birth of RNA, then of proteins.

German epidemiologist Andreas Roland Grüntzig dies in a plane crash. He invented angioplasty to expand blocked arteries and thus helped save 15 million lives (estimate updated at the beginning of the 21st century).

Freeman Dyson (Princeton) theorizes that life may have had two independent origins: a primordial life form capable of metabolizing proteins but unable to reproduce effectively; the other efficient in reproduction but without metabolism; the two life forms would have then merged (symbiosis)

Whittington lists 22 species of Burgess shales in his category of organisms not placed in any Phylum or class of Arthropoda