This document summarizes 17 important scientific discoveries from 2013, including the abilities of bees to sense electric fields from flowers, the detection of over 1,000 exoplanets that likely exist, and the discovery of an insect with interlocking leg gears. It also discusses findings such as the amount of water in Martian soil from the Curiosity rover, using whale earwax to determine lifespans, and the "eerie" sounds detected from interstellar space by Voyager 1. Further topics covered include evidence of climate change, detecting neutrinos from outside the solar system, a new carnivorous mammal found in Colombia, and growing brain-like organoids in a lab.

1. 17 important
things science
taught us
in 2013
Bee superpowers, living in a pretend
spaceship and a mammal that has sex
until it falls apart. 2013 was a
rollercoaster ride of a year for science

2. Bees can sense the
electric fields of flowers
Oh, and flowers have electric fields. This helps bees determine
which flowers still have nectar. And it was the first time such an
ability had been detected in insects

3. There are over 1000 exoplanets
that (almost) definitely exist
And there could be billions of rocky planets with water at their surfaces in the galaxy

4. There’s an insect that has gears
It’s called a planthopper and its two hind legs connect together
with interlocking teeth, like gears!

5. There is roughly 2 pints of water in
every cubic foot of soil on Mars
Just one of NASA’s Curiosity rover’s brilliant finds

6. You can use a blue whale’s wax
earplug to work out its life history
Kind of like tree rings. Except made of wax, from a whale’s ear

7. Interstellar space
sounds kind of eerie
In September the Voyager 1 spacecraft sent us a recording from its new vantage
point in interstellar space. And its… pretty creepy, actually. But also cool

8. Climate change is definitely happening
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In September the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the summary
of their latest report. The full report is the work of hundreds of scientists and
concludes that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

9. Sometimes you have to wait three years for an
intergalactic neutrino, then 28 turn up at once
IceCube, an underground Antarctic telescope detected high-energy neutrinos from
outside our solar system for the first time this year

10. A new carnivorous mammal that was discovered
in Colombia is possibly the cutest thing ever!
Hola, olinguito! It was the first such new species found in 35 years

11. Seahorse’s heads are perfectly
adapted to stealthily stalk their prey
Which is handy, because their prey are really sensitive to tiny ripples in the water

12. Sometimes not finding something
can be almost as useful as finding it
The first result from an experiment called LUX didn’t find any dark matter, and actually
contradict hints of the stuff seen by other experiments. But it did put some useful
constraints on what dark matter isn’t and will help scientists eventually work out what it is

13. Living in a pretend spaceship can
get you down
The Mars 500 crew lived in a “spaceship” in a Russian car park for 500 days. They got out
in 2011, but data from the stay is still being analysed now. In January this year we learnt
that four of the six crew had trouble with sleeping or developed depression during the
mission. One crew member had such chronic sleep deprivation that he accounted for the
majority of errors in concentration and alertness tests all crew undertook

14. It’s possible to grow something
that looks remarkably similar to a
developing brain in a lab
The “cerebral organoids” are pea-sized and reached a similar level of
development to a nine-week old foetus. It’s not capable of thought,
it’s not a brain in a jar, but it’s still exciting

15. There’s a mammal in Australia
that has sex until it disintegrates
For two or three weeks the antechinus mates with as many females as
possible before almost literally falling apart and dying from exhaustion

16. If a meteor falls in Russia, lots of videos of
it will be available because everyone has
dashboard cameras in their cars
The asteroid that exploded over the skies of Chelyabinsk in
February injured over 1000 people. Scientists were able to
reconstruct exactly how the whole thing happened

17. The US and Russia are not the
only countries that can
send a rover to the moon
China landed its Chang’e 3 probe and first lunar rover, Yutu, on
the moon this December. It’s already planning its next
unmanned trip in 2017, when it will try to bring back samples

18. The Milky Way has four arms, not two
Turns out its hard to tell what a galaxy looks like when you’re living inside it!

19. Looking forward to
what exciting
discoveries 2014
has to offer!
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