A key ingredient for life spotted on one of Saturn's moons. An early chapter in human history revised. AI takes hold. It all happened this year.

• Why it matters: The world urgently needs new ideas and inspiration to alleviate chronic and infectious diseases, climate change, energy demands and other complex problems, Axios managing editor Alison Snyder writes.

Here are some of 2023's biggest discoveries and advances:

• AI-assisted discovery: The growing use of AI for science transformed coding, revealed a new class of antibiotics, and predicted the structure of 400,000 possible new materials needed for next-gen batteries, solar cells and computing.
• Gene-editing cure: The FDA approved the first therapy that uses CRISPR gene editing, a treatment for sickle cell disease. The approach could be used for other diseases but is right now expensive, raising concerns about access to therapies.
• Human history revised: A genetic analysis provided more evidence that modern humans emerged from at least two populations that migrated across Africa and mixed with one another. The finding put "a nail in the coffin" of the idea that modern humans had a single birthplace, a researcher told the N.Y. Times.
• Brain maps drawn: A census of the cell types in the human brain, a map of the maggot brain and a complete atlas of the cells in the mouse brain — multi-year efforts involving hundreds of researchers at dozens of institutions — were released this year. They could help provide much-needed insights into learning, behavior, and brain diseases and disorders.
• Astronomy challenged: The James Webb Space Telescope spotted unusual possible early galaxies and pairs of worlds — perhaps planets or maybe stars — orbiting each other. If confirmed, they could require a reexamination of the formation of stars and the evolution of the universe.
• New species spotted: Spiders, sea slugs, octopi, plants, insects, microbes and hundreds of other species discovered this year are a reminder of Earth's vast biodiversity.

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The Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7, an epic failure by Israeli intelligence, also was a baffling failure of the nation's vaunted military, a New York Times investigation finds:

• Troops were "out of position and so poorly organized that soldiers communicated in impromptu WhatsApp groups and relied on social media posts for targeting information."
• Unbelievably, the Israel Defense Forces didn't appear to have a battle plan to respond to a large-scale Hamas attack on Israeli soil. Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general and a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the paper: "The army does not prepare itself for things it thinks are impossible."

Key findings by The Times:

• "Israeli military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy. Some described heading south on their own initiative. ... Terrorists blocked key highway intersections, leaving soldiers bogged down in firefights as they tried to enter besieged towns."
• "Records from early in the day show that, even during the attack, the military still assessed that Hamas, at best, would be able to breach Israel's border fence in just a few places. A separate intelligence document, prepared weeks later, shows that Hamas teams actually breached the fence in more than 30 locations."
• "When the attacks began, many soldiers were fighting for their lives instead of protecting residents nearby. ... The division that was supposed to be directing the battle was trying not to get overrun."
• On the holiday weekend (Simchat Torah), as Israeli intelligence officials tried to make sense of unusual Hamas activity just over the border in Gaza, many soldiers "were allowed to keep sleeping."

The bottom line: "The scope of the catastrophe, if not the attack itself, was preventable, according to records and interviews," The Times concludes.

• Read the article (gift link — no paywall).

In the Red Sea today, U.S. Navy helicopters returned fire in self-defense at four Houthi small boats out of Yemen, sinking three of the four boats and killing the crews, U.S. Central Command announced.

• The fourth fled.

Why it matters: This is the most significant engagement by U.S. forces against the Iranian-backed Houthis since they started attacking ships in the Red Sea after the Israel-Hamas war began, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

What happened: The Navy helicopters were responding to a distress call from the container ship Maersk Hangzhou after it was fired on by the rebels, who attempted to board.

🖼️ The big picture: The Houthis claim their attacks are against ships heading to and from Israel. But the rebels have attacked many other ships, and significantly hampered freedom of navigation on one of the world's most vital maritime commercial routes.

🚢 The latest: Maersk, a global shipping giant with 700+ container vessels, announced today that it's pausing all sailing through the Red Sea for 48 hours.

From his old office suite at the Capitol, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy watches another failed vote to replace him on Oct. 18, two weeks after he'd been ousted.

Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, then little-known, is surrounded by House Republicans after being chosen GOP nominee for speaker on Oct. 24. The House elected him the next day, ending the three-week vacancy.

• 2023 in photos: Taylor Swift, Trump and more, curated by Axios' Aïda Amer.

China expanded an anti-corruption campaign targeting power centers within the military, risking instability during a critical time in China's foreign relations, Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian writes.

• Why it matters: Recent purges highlight obstacles facing Xi Jinping as he tries to complete his military modernization drive by 2050.

What's happening: Nine Chinese generals and three Chinese defense technology officials were removed from a top Chinese Communist Party advisory body, according to Chinese state media.

• The generals largely came from the Rocket Force, which oversees China's missile program.

The defense industry officials all work at state-owned missile manufacturing companies.

• Three members of the powerful Politburo once worked at the same three companies of the ousted officials. In China's opaque high-level politics, that kind of link between powerful officials and fallen officials could mean Xi is targeting patronage networks.

What to watch: China appointed a new defense minister on Friday, Admiral Dong Jun, who has a South China Sea background.

• That fills "a monthslong vacancy created by the unexplained disappearance of the previous minister, who appeared to have fallen in an investigation into possible corruption," the N.Y. Times writes.

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Anne Ratchford Kearns — who lived for 60 years in the Pennsylvania house at the root of President Biden's "Scranton Joe" lore, and hosted him several times when he visited his hometown — died on Christmas Eve at 88.

• "From This House To The White House With the Grace of God," Biden wrote with a Sharpie on Kearns' living-room wall during a stop on election morning in 2020.

Biden loved to visit the house and schmooze with Kearns when he returned to Scranton, where he was born in 1942. He sometimes came with his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and sometimes with his late mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden, known as Jean (who lived to 92!).

• The president lived in Kearns' house from roughly ages 5 to 10.

☘️ Then-Vice President Biden hosted Kearns at the White House on St. Patrick's Day in 2010.

• Kearns welcomed Hillary Clinton and Vice President Biden into her kitchen when they stopped in Scranton while she was running for president in 2016.

The Kearns family bought the home for $14,000 in 1962 from Edward Finnegan, Biden's uncle, according to The (Scranton) Times-Tribune, which gave Kearns a front-page sendoff.

🖊️ Above: Biden signed a wall in Anne's living room during a campaign stop on Election Day 2020.

• He signed a bedroom wall during his 2008 race for vice president: "I Am Home ... Joe Biden." (Photo)
• Scranton lore says that when Biden was living in the house as a kid, he scrawled on his bedroom wall: "Joe was here." The Kearns family painted over his childhood graffiti. That's why Biden signing walls became a thing. 

Biden paid tribute to Kearns in a statement released by the White House: "Over the many years I knew Anne Kearns, and the many times I visited her at my childhood home, I knew her as an embodiment of Scranton values."

• "She was a woman of integrity, grit, decency, compassion, and grace," the president continued. "Her greatest joy and her greatest pride in life was her family — her large Irish Catholic family — that always welcomed me home."
• "North Washington, Maloney Field, Green Ridge Little League, Fisk Street, Simmey's, Marywood University, St. Paul's Church, and so much more. Nothing but joy and friendship. Anne was Scranton. And Scranton will miss her. Jill and I share our deepest condolences with the Kearns family and all those who loved her."

More than a ton of confetti will drop in Times Square at midnight — including 130,000 slips of paper with wishes from all over the world.

• The Times Square Alliance collected thousands of wishes from 154 countries through online submissions and a physical wishing wall in Times Square.

Among the wishes that will flutter over revelers:

• "My wish is to become financially stable but also take my mom on her bucket list trips."
• "I want the war end in Ukraine and my father will come back home and live under the peaceful sky."
• "My wish is for my dad to never forget how much I love him. #dementiacaregiver."
• "I wish to hug a chicken."
• "I'd love to go horseback riding with Reba McEntire!"
• "I wish to see my 99th birthday and make it to my granddaughter's wedding in September!!"
• "My wish is that my wife be pain free, happy, healthy and come to know how truly special she is."
• "To have a complete historical American Girl doll collection."

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