It’s been 70 years since American and Chinese troops fought at the Chosin Reservoir. It marked the high tide of the U.S.-led invasion of North Korea and was a turning point in the Korean War.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/941237449/god-let-us-survive-remembering-korean-wars-chosin-battle-and-evacuation
As early as WWII, the U.S. Army was experimenting with composite tank armor. It’s interesting to see how simple some of the composite fillings were: “80% gravel, 5% wood flour, 15% asphalt or pitch”
https://thedeaddistrict.blogspot.com/2020/12/m4-sherman-with-composite-plastic-armor.html
A “directed microwave weapon” could be what caused over 20 American and Canadian diplomatic staff stationed in Cuba and China to fall ill with strange symptoms between 2016 and 2018.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-science-havana-cuba-china-8eee2de0d887e67d530d1a6f272d781c
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-diplomats-health/scans-show-changes-to-brains-of-havana-u-s-embassy-workers-who-reported-illness-idUSKCN1UI20D
Russia still has a secret chemical weapons program, and they developed a new type of undetectable, time-released poison.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/
By brokering a end to the Armenia-Azerbaijan War and deploying peacekeepers to the region, Russia has strengthened its influence there. It’s unlikely to leave anytime soon.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/russias-new-territory/
Google has used artificial intelligence to achieve another startling scientific milestone: A machine called “AlphaFold 2” has apparently solved the “protein folding problem,” or at least come close to doing so. If given a linear sequence of amino acids, the machine is able to predict how they will fold up into a 3D molecular structure with nearly perfect accuracy.
https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/120520/ai-makes-huge-progress-predicting-how-proteins-fol
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/01/the-big-problems
And the hits keep on coming: A different Google AI called “MuZero” was able to teach itself how to play Go, Shogi, Chess, and Mrs. Pac-Man, without any help from humans or formal knowledge of each game’s rules. It just watched, experimented, and learned.
https://deepmind.com/blog/article/muzero-mastering-go-chess-shogi-and-atari-without-rules
Facial recognition cameras are getting better at identifying people whose noses and mouths are obscured by masks.
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2020/12/face-recognition-software-shows-improvement-recognizing-masked-faces
Chinese scientists have figured out how to differentiate Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Koreans from their facial features.
https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1278
Elon Musk says he will launch humans to Mars in 2026, and all new cars produced in 2030 will have fully autonomous driving capabilities.
https://youtu.be/fjLa834mv8Q
A Chinese unmanned probe landed on the Moon and sent a few rocks back to Earth. It’s the first time in 44 years such samples have been returned.
https://www.space.com/china-sharing-chang-e-5-moon-samples
After the Apollo missions ended, NASA wanted to use the Saturn V rockets and modified versions of the other Apollo space hardware to build a Moon colony and do manned flybys of Venus and Mars.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-if-nasas-apollo-program/
“If our planet was 50% larger in diameter, we would not be able to venture into space, at least using rockets for transport.”
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition30/tryanny.html
Metabolites, which are found in any person’s sweat, urine, hair, or saliva, contain a wealth of information about things such as their diet, exercise level, and state of health.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/13/people-leave-molecular-wakes-that-may-give-away-their-secrets
A new MIT analysis finds that there’s no simple explanation for why it is so expensive to build nuclear power plants in the U.S. Workers spend shockingly large amounts of time idle at nuclear construction sites, which might be the single biggest money waster, but the reasons for the idleness are varied.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/
“Over the longer term, perhaps in another 15 or 20 years, you will see a complete transformation in therapeutic medicine, because every pharmaceutical company is investing, and every biotech company is also contributing to the development of new targets for drug therapy, based upon the genome. And the therapies that we use 15 or 20 years from now will be directed much more precisely towards the molecular problem in things like cancer, or mental illness, than anything that we currently have available.”
–Francis Collins during a 2000 speech about the future of genetic medicine
https://web.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/clinton3.shtml
We may now have (expensive) cures for sickle-cell anemia and beta-thalassemia. Both treatments are gene therapies, the first using CRISPR and the second using RNA interference (RNAi).
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/07/gene-therapy-absolutely-and-for-real
It’s not true that “all the cells in a human body turn over every seven years.” Some of them take decades to replace themselves, and some never do at all.
https://www.more.com/lifestyle/exercise-health/truth-about-your-bodys-cell-regeneration/
The effects of birth order on several sibling traits and life outcomes may be minimal.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0890207020969010
This article from 2011 actually made some decent predictions about 2020 (take note of the feasibility ratings at the ends of each prediction’s paragraph).
https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/2020-possibly-going-be-one-seriously-awesome-year/
From 2015: ‘One in 10 U.S. homes may have a robot by 2020’
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3018338/one-in-10-us-homes-may-have-a-robot-by-2020.html
“Ecobots” are robots that can eat organic matter and turn the energy into electricity. The most advanced model can even poop. In the distant future, I think some robots and posthumans will be able to derive energy from the full range of organic and synthetic sources, as this will be the most versatile setup (very hard to “starve” if you can eat plants AND plug in to an electrical outlet).
https://www.treehugger.com/scientists-invent-robot-that-eats-organic-matter-then-poops-4860413
Your moment of zen: a flying drone armed with a flamethrower destroys a wasp nest.
https://apnews.com/article/asia-pacific-china-chongqing-84436504dbf59c587cb227eb4c1fe0c5
The FAA has loosened rules regarding drones, bring the U.S. closer to a future of widespread delivery drones.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/29/951010863/u-s-announces-new-rules-for-drones-and-their-operators
A “subterrene” is a special vehicle that uses a giant, superhot drill at its front to dig an underground tunnel. The Soviets reportedly built a nuclear-powered one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Subterrene&oldid=969567544
Manmade objects now outweigh all the plants and animals on Earth. By weight, most of our manufactured goods come in the form of concrete, bricks and other building materials comprising structures and infrastructure.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55239668
“Lunar resonant streetlights” can sense ambient light levels and adjust the brightness of their own bulbs accordingly. During full Moons, the lights would get very dim.
http://www.civiltwilightcollective.com/lunar-resonant-streetlights/
Gravity sensors (gravimeters) are now as small as postage stamps. Imagine having them embedded in your body so you could sense things like metal through the walls, or buried meteors under your feet.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/fossil-fuels/stampsized-gravity-meter-could-have-big-impact-on-oil-exploration
From May: ‘Researchers at Singapore University of Technology and Design have created a complex model predicting the exact date the pandemic will end in the US, UK, and other countries around the world. According to the data, the US is on track to be coronavirus-free by November 11, while the UK could see an earlier end date of September 30.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8350935/US-coronavirus-pandemic-early-November-predictive-model-shows.html
It’s hard to remember now, but early in the pandemic, there was some hope that it would be over by the end of 2020, thanks to a vaccine being invented with surprising speed, or to the virus somehow turning out to not be as bad as expected. On March 31, Dr. Fauci flatly rejected those hopes by predicting that there would be a serious second wave in the fall, which happened.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8171657/Fauci-expects-America-suffer-coronavirus-outbreak-fall.html
Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine could mark the beginning of a new era of vaccines. Who knows: maybe the number of lives saved by future vaccines will exceed the number of deaths from COVID-19.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/mrna-vaccines-could-revolutionise-medicine/
Fauci now predicts that vaccinations will start measurably decreasing COVID-19 infection rates by April, and that herd immunity could be achieved if 75% – 85% of Americans got vaccinated. At current rates, that could happen by the end of 2021.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/15/946714505/fauci-predicts-u-s-could-see-signs-of-herd-immunity-by-late-march-or-early-april
Facing a higher death toll than its neighbors, Sweden has ended its lax approach to the COVID-19 pandemic and instituted a national lockdown.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-a-holdout-from-covid-19-restrictions-sweden-ends-its-pandemic-experiment-11607261658
Russia just admitted its COVID-19 death toll was way worse than they had been claiming.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/russia-admits-to-world-third-worst-covid-19-death-toll-underreported
Fears that Thanksgiving travel would cause a surge in COVID-19 infections were unfounded.
https://www.bbc.com/news/55363256
There’s growing evidence that vulnerability to COVID-19 is partly genetic.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/key-genes-related-to-severe-covid-19-infection-identified-68276
Tyler Cowen’s prediction from April was basically right. The U.S. never had a national lockdown strategy and muddled through the year with a mix of state-level strategies that “yo-yoed” based on infection levels. It’s now the fall, and individual COVID-19 survival rates are higher because we’ve learned better ways to treat it, but overall deaths are higher than ever because so many more people are getting infected. We have vaccines (and it sounds like their invention might have come earlier than Cowen predicted), but distribution has just started, and his point that it will take a long time to inoculate the American population will hold true.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/04/where-we-stand.html
Bill Gates doesn’t think the COVID-19 related restrictions in the U.S. will completely go away for 12 to 18 months. Everything hinges on how many people get vaccinated, and how quickly.
https://youtu.be/dCt23D8VXpc?t=473
A new, more contagious strain of COVID-19 has emerged in Britain. While not more lethal to any single infected person than the older strain, its ability to quickly infect larger numbers of people will raise the death toll.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/22/the-new-mutations