Biggest science news of 2021: Brain blob in a dish grows a pair of ‘eyes’

Incredible advances in growing living tissue in the lab took another amazing turn in August when a blob of brain cells grew eye-like structures Technology 15 December 2021 By Clare Wilson Elke Gabriel There was a leap forward in understanding brain development in August, when lumps of neural tissue in a dish were coaxed into … Read more

Biggest science news of 2021: Space tourism begins – for billionaires, anyway

A flurry of short flights aboard privately funded craft saw space tourism begin with a bang for billionaires in 2021. Perhaps by the end of the decade, mere millionaires will be able to join them Space 15 December 2021 By Leah Crane New Shepard’s first crew and capsule Joe Raedle/Getty Images THIS year, the extraordinarily … Read more

Biggest science news of 2021: Jian-Wei Pan leads China’s quantum computing mission to two major quantum supremacy successes

In July, the University of Science and Technology of China announced it had surpassed Google’s claimed quantum supremacy achievement. China’s ambitious quantum computing efforts are all under the oversight of one man, Jian-Wei Pan Technology 15 December 2021 By Matthew Sparkes Xinhua/Alamy GOVERNMENTS and companies around the world are racing to build a useful quantum … Read more

Biggest science news of 2021: Tomato becomes first CRISPR-edited food to go on sale to public

In September, GABA-enriched tomatoes in Japan became the first foods modified by CRISPR gene editing to go on sale to the public Technology 15 December 2021 By Michael Le Page Courtesy of Sanatech Seed They may look ordinary, but in September these tomatoes became the first CRISPR-edited food to go on sale to the public. … Read more

Biggest science news of 2021: DeepMind solves 98.5 per cent of human protein structures using its AlphaFold model

In July, DeepMind announced that its AlphaFold model had worked out how most of the proteins in our bodies fold. Pushmeet Kohli tells New Scientist that there is more to come Technology 15 December 2021 By Matthew Sparkes A 3D model of a fruit fly protein from DeepMind DeepMind IT TOOK decades for scientists to … Read more