An enhanced-color image of Jupiter's south pole created by citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko using data acquired by NASA's Juno spacecraft on February 2, 2017. Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Roman Tkachenko
Sometimes the value of scientific research and the implications of how science is done and regarded aren't understood for years. Still, some science stories from the past year stood out. From colliding neutron stars to DNA editing to that visitor from another solar system, here are our choices for the top stories of 2017:
- Astronomers announced a new era when they detected the collision of two neutron stars.
- DNA was edited in human embryos for the first time in the U.S. (Go deeper: researchers questioned the report. But gene editing has arrived in medicine — the first clinical trials in humans are expected to start in the next year or so.)
- In another first, an object from another solar system was spotted entering our stellar territory. Initially it was thought to be an asteroid but on further analysis it could be a comet.
- Our own origin story became a little messier with the discovery of the oldest human fossils to date in Morocco.
- AI got good at games: most notably, it learned to play Go by itself and triumphed over humans at a version of Texas Hold 'Em. (What's next: AI in 2018.)
- China flexed some serious physics muscles in a series of space-based quantum communications experiments.
- The Nobel prizes in the sciences were again awarded to men — most of them white Americans.
- The Antarctic peninsula will never look the same after an iceberg broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf in July.
- Policy and politics: President Trump's initial budget proposal included steep funding cuts, he has been slow to fill key scientific positions in the government, and many of his nominees lack science degrees. Meanwhile, foreign leaders offered to take in U.S. scientists.
- Gene therapies made it to market, including a CAR-T cancer treatment for children and young adults with a certain form of leukemia approved by the FDA in August. The treatment involves modifying a patient's immune cells and then placing them back in the body to attack cancer cells. What to expect next: a debate over pricing the drugs.