Science is not just the static set of facts you might find in a textbook. It’s an endeavor to understand the world — and universe — around us. New discoveries are being made all the time.
Some add small pieces of information to what is already known. Others fundamentally alter our thinking.This year was full of major scientific events and discoveries. Don’t feel bad if you missed them. You were probably reading stories about bits of science that affect your everyday lives.But here’s your chance to catch up on what you may have overlooked.
10. A new continent
Every U.S. schoolkid learns that there are seven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe and North and South America. Scientists usually combine two of those into the larger Eurasia, but they largely have recognized the same land masses. Now a group of geologists has proposed adding a new continent to the list: Zealandia. Most of the continent is submerged beneath the ocean’s surface. But some of it — mostly the nation of New Zealand — peeks above the waves. There’s no official way to add a continent to the world’s master list. But if enough people start referring to Zealandia as a continent, a continent it will become.
“This story had to make the top 10 list,” says Science News for Students (SNS) staff writer Bethany Brookshire. “We can’t be old and crusty about how our world is built. New discoveries are at the core of what science is about.
”9. The death of Cassini
The Cassini mission blasted off from Earth back in 1997, then spent nearly seven years traveling to Saturn. There, the spacecraft was supposed to spend three years studying the ringed planet. In fact, it extended that visit — by a lot. It spent 13 years and 76 days orbiting Saturn, before intentionally making a deathly dive into the planet on September 15. Why? NASA did not want to risk contaminating Saturn’s moons. Over the years, the Cassini mission made an amazing number of discoveries, from finding ingredients for life on the moons of Titan and Enceladus to revealing massive storms that have raged for decades. SNS contributing editor Elizabeth Preston says: “An intrepid robot crosses the solar system, sends back beautiful photos of Saturn, carries out a daring final mission inside the planet’s rings, then plunges to its death to protect (possible) alien life — what’s not to love about this story?”
8. Our bones produce an array of hidden hormones
Your skeleton provides the internal structure for your body, helping to hold you up and to protect soft tissues. Those bones are constantly changing, with cells turning over all the time. This keeps everything strong and healthy. But studies in mice are showing that our bones are more active than you would ever think. They produce hormones. These are natural chemicals that act as messengers within the body. Bone hormones, studies have found, chat with organs like the brain, kidneys and pancreas. “We often see bones as just a kind of a dead scaffold that supports our meaty selves,” says Brookshire. “But this story showed just how alive they are, and how much they might do for us every day.”
7. New evidence about what killed the dinosaurs
An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Well, maybe that’s true, but it might not be. Scientists have been digging up new evidence that shows the tale of the dinos’ demise is more complex that what had been thought. There was a devastating asteroid impact off the coast of what is now Mexico. It may have thrown so much debris into the sky that the sun was blocked out for years. But life on this planet may have already been in trouble from supervolcanoes that erupted for 750,000 years in what is now India, studies have shown. “This is a classic scientific…
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