Nature Selection, 2019 Top 10 Scientific Issues We Need to Know

The international science journal Nature has selected 10 science issues to be highlighted in 2019. Some of them are science projects that have been tried for the first time in human history. The most important keyword of large-scale science and technology that will be realized in various fields in the New Year is 'environment'. What kind of technology will scientists challenge?

   1. Antarctic iceberg collapse study and 1.5 million years old ice core search.

  

   What will be the most important science issue in 2019? Nature is ranked first in the study of the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet due to climate change, a project of the National Science Foundation and the UK Natural Environment Research Society, which is launched in January.

  

   The project is to predict how much time left for the actual collapse of the Thwaites Glacier, which belongs to the five glaciers of Antarctica. It is the largest joint research in Antarctica over 70 years.

  

   The size of the Tweetwater glacier is 1.5 times the area of   Korea. These gigantic glaciers have recently melted rapidly from below and are unstable. The team will estimate the melting rate of glaciers over the next five years and calculate when the glaciers will collapse. In this work, an autonomous navigable unmanned submersible is used. The submersible observes the movement of the glacier below the surface of the water and seals with sensors attached to the forehead are used to identify the marine ecosystem near the glacier.

  

   Meanwhile, by the end of 2019, European scientists in the South Pole will begin a drilling project to find the "ice core" for 1.5 million years. At Little Dome C, a certain point in Antarctica, the glaciers will be pierced with long sticks and samples will be collected. This is because there is a key in the Antarctic ice to figure out the atmosphere of the ancient earth. It is the air that was contained when the ice was created.

  

   If you put your Antarctic ice in water and tilt your ears, you can hear the rumbling sound like in a carbonated drink. The air bubbles in the ice are popping. Very old ice has been studied to contain less than 20% of the total air. The more ice is made recently, the more air there is.

  

   The air in the ice has been mixed in the process of snow accumulation and compression in the Antarctic for a long time. The ice is piled up every year, so the lower the air is, the older it is. By studying what constitutes this old air, you can learn more about the environment and climate at that time. So scientists are trying to drill deep holes in the ice of Antarctica to save ice. This long cylindrical shape of ice is the 'ice core'. Let's wait for scientists to look at the 'old earth' to find a windswept on cold ice.

  

  

   2. Delay global warming ... The first artificial experiment ever.

  

   There is also a plan to solve the problem of global warming with the power of science and technology. For the first time in human history, the 'Solar Geoengineering' project that artificially slows global warming is it. In an experiment called SCoPEx (Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment), it is a way to cool the earth by artificially reducing sunlight coming into the surface by spraying sunlight reflecting material into the stratosphere. It is a technology that I could see in the movie 'Geostrum' (2017).

  

   Researchers at Harvard University's Department of Applied Physics and Atmospheric Sciences are working on the experiment. According to the researchers, 0.1 to 1 kg of calcium carbonate, which reflects the sunlight well using a hot air balloon, is sprayed over 20 km in the stratosphere. Then we look at how much sunlight has decreased and how the temperature has changed, and how the calcium carbonate microparticles have affected the chemicals that make up the atmosphere to see if it can be cooled. In 1991, when the Pinatubo volcano erupted in the Philippines, 20 million tons of sulfate particles were generated in the stratosphere, and the objective was to artificially reproduce the earth's cooling of about 0.5 degrees Celsius.

  

   Some skeptics, however, are concerned that "calcium carbonate, a kind of chalk powder, can create unexpected results in the sky and can make a bungling effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

3. Space signal capture? Operation of the world's largest radio telescope.

  

   China's Spherical Telescope (FAST) 'Tian'an (Snow of the sky)', which has been in operation since September 25, 2016, will be in operation from September this year and will be opened to scientists in earnest. Tianyen is the world's largest radio telescope, 500m in diameter and 30 square meters in size, with an area of 250,000 square meters.

  

   Tianyen, built with 1.2 billion yuan (about 198.5 billion won), has been monitoring the operation of more than 50 new pulsars (neutron stars). When the supernova explodes in the process of the star 's evolution, the neutron star rotates at super - fast speed as the star' s core contracts. At that stage, it emits a short, regular pulse signal. There are so many pulsers in the galaxy, but the signal is so weak that only about 2,700 pulsars have been identified so far.

  

   World scientists will use Tianyan to observe the faint signals from the 'Fast Radio Burst' (FRB) and interstellar matter. A high-speed radio explosion is a "buzzing" noise from the universe, propagated only for a short period of time, on the order of milliseconds (ms • 1 ms is a thousandth of a second), intermittently observed only through radio telescopes. A total of 18 high-speed radio blasts were detected for 10 years after the first detection in 2007, but they do not know exactly where they occurred. Therefore, it is called 'the sound of aliens', and remains a mystery of the astronomical system. World scientists will unleash all the secrets of the roar through Tianyan.

 4. Japan to build international linear particle collider.

  

   The year 2019 is also an important year for deciding whether or not to attract successors to the LHC, which finds Higgs particles. It is the 'International Linear Collider (ILC)' construction plan. After detecting the Higgs particles using the LHC at the European Particle Physics Research Institute (CERN) in 2012, the world's particle physicists have been discussing the construction of next-generation particle accelerators that can generate massive Higgs particles and study their properties in more detail.

  

   So, Japanese physicists announced that they will organize the construction of ILC, which is 31km in length, in order to operate in 2030. Japan is the only country that has shown interest in attracting ILCs. Linear accelerators can more precisely implement Higgs particles by accelerating and colliding atomic electrons and positrons in long straight lines. As the construction of the LHC began to be discussed from the 1980s, Japanese physicists have also been attracting attention for more than a decade since launching the next generation accelerator plan and basic design.

  

   An astronomical cost of about $ 10 billion is needed to build an ILC. The Japanese government did not support the ILC construction project because of the huge cost. For this reason, Japanese physicists will announce the official position on March 7 to decide whether to keep or withdraw the ILC construction policy. There is a great interest in world particle physics academics as to what kind of results Japan will produce.

  

  

   5. Gene editing controversy continues.

  

   In late November, Hugen Kuu, professor at the Southern China University of Science and Technology, revealed that he created a baby who edited the gene with CRISPR-Cas9 technology. It corrects the gene of the artificially fertilized embryo and causes a twin girl who is resistant to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to cause AIDS. It is the first 'genetically modified baby' in human history that has prevented AIDS in advance. Scientists and technologists at the time pointed out that they ignored the ethics of life research, and expressed concern that existing genetic editing research might even shrink.

  

   Nature has predicted that the controversy surrounding the unexpectedly open "Pandora's Box" will continue in the new year. In the reality that most countries in the world do not allow genetic editing of human embryos, Hezenko's research was a shocking event. World geneticists plan to work on assessing potential side effects, such as whether Hugenkoei has actually edited twin girls' DNA or edited the DNA if it has been edited, and whether it is more susceptible to new virus infections . The international community has a high voice to establish an ethical framework for bioscience research to control genetic engineering experiments.

  

  

   6. Implementation of 'Plan S' to open in the form of open access.

  

   The implementation of Plan S, an open access movement, is also a science-related issue that attracts attention in the new year. Plan S is a project that aims to open academic research results (papers) from 2020 as free open access that anyone can access, not closed journals, as long as there are no special reasons. The first veteran science policy officer in Europe, Robert-Jans Sumitz, launched Plan S to open more scientific papers to anyone.

  

   There is a strong interest in the open access movement around the world. The National Institutes of Health has publicly stated that it should be made public for anyone with research funded by the national tax. Some leading American universities, such as MIT and Harvard University, have announced plans to publish their findings on their institution's Web site. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States and the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom will join Plan S to support research funding in various fields.

  

   "We need to change the business model in order to accept Plan S," said Nature. I hope that the open-access movement, which has not been settled yet, will be settled in order to solve the knowledge gap and strengthen the research competitiveness of academic researchers.

7. Identify the Origin of Humanity! Research is pouring.

  

   The movement to uncover the origins of ancient humanity (Hominin) is also noticeable. In 2003, archaeologists unearthed human-like "Hobbit" species on Flores Island, Indonesia. Since then, more ancient human fossils have been discovered in China, and research on the origin of humanity has been proceeding rapidly.

  

   Nature expects fossils that reveal the origin of the New Year's hummi species to be found much more in Southeast Asian islands. In particular, I expected to see a lot of clues from Hominin, who first lived in Luzon Island, Philippines. Luzon Island is a region that has received attention from academia since the discovery of Hobbit species on Flores Island. If the various fossils were excavated in Luzon Island, Nature would see more facts about humans who first lived on the island, and the secrets to why the size of humans in Florida could be shrunken.

  

  

   8. The secrets of the weed ... Basic and applied research

  

   Research on cannabis is also expected to become visible. In particular, many Canadian researchers are involved in studies covering the growth of cannabis, its effects on the body, and its effects on the human body.

  

   Because the Canadian government in 2018 legalized cannabis for the second time in the world after Uruguay, the state and federal governments provided huge funding for research on marijuana so that they would not be behind each other.

  

   By the end of 2019, Canada's first marijuana research center will be built at Guelph University in Canada. It is expected to study everything from cannabis genetics to health benefits. The science and technology community expects to see a variety of research results on cannabis for the first time this year.

  

  

   9. Full revision of 'Laboratory Biosafety Manual' .

  

   By mid-2019, a major revision of the World Health Organization's "Laboratory Biosafety Manual" will be finalized. This manual is a universally accepted guideline that contains treatment standards and emergency response laws that safely treat pathogens to protect humans from infectious, high-risk pathogens such as Ebola. At the same time, it also serves as a reference resource for pathogen handling agencies and researchers, thereby enhancing convenience.

  

   The 'Laboratory Biosafety Manual' was first published in 2004. It is a full-scale revision to be implemented within the next 15 years. WHO is revising its manuals to enhance laboratory safety-related assessment, management improvement, and researcher training.

  

  

   10. Chinese and European science and technology...  R & D investment.

  

   Investment in science and technology is expected to continue into the new year. Especially, China is expected to be a terrifying 'runaway'. By the end of 2019, the world will be able to push the United States to become the world's largest research and development (R & D) investment country by announcing the 2018 accounting report, which shows the investment performance of science and technology.

  

   China's science investment has been growing rapidly since 2003. It is attracting attention from the world in terms of R & D scale and quality. China has launched Changer 4, which landed on the back of the New Year's early moon, on December 8 last year, and succeeded in raising the plasma temperature, which is essential for nuclear fusion reactor construction, by 100 million.

  

   Europe also invests $ 110 billion (123.7 trillion won) in new year R & D. The European Union is discussing ways to fund the research funding program "Horizon Europe" from 2021 to 2027. It also suggests ways to create jobs. The European Commission's proposal since 2013 has a bold commitment to invest in the future of Europe so that even the smallest amount of money can be returned to the people of Europe.