In the 100th year since Einstein published five landmark papers on space and time, we reached a new peak in space exploration, reasserted (at least for now) Darwin’s Evolution theory, expanded our search for clues to the origin of life and unleashed a whole range of gadgets and started work on the next generation of gizmos. For two whole years since the Columbia disaster no manned space missions were attempted.
Then Discovery, Nasa’s comeback craft after the 1986 Challenger disaster, was picked again. Close on the American space agency’s heels China launched its second manned space mission on October 12. The Mars rovers and the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft sent back some of the best pictures ever of Mars, Saturn and the space in general.
The biggest discovery came recently when Huygens-Cassini transmitted data showing an atmosphere and water on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest satellite. Also, a 10th planet, christened Buffy, with a crazy orbit was discovered. Out here it got downright ugly with the spat between Evolution Theory and Intelligent Design (ID).
US President George W Bush came out in support of ID – the concept that living creatures too complex to have evolved without the help of an intelligent creator. The argument reached the courts when pro-Evolution Theory teachers were forced to teach ID in schools. All lobbying notwithstanding, Evolution Theory emerged the biggest winner of 2005. The icing on the cake was a US judge ruling in December that ID is not science.
Scientific temper hit the roof when stem cell ‘pioneer’ Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea told the world that he had broken the ethical code by using egg cells from two of co-reseacrhers in his study. From that point on, things just started falling apart for the Clone King. Soon his ‘pathbreaking’ cloning of the human embryo was questioned. And a panel of experts decisively concluded earlier this month that the scientist had doctored his report.
Now, even his claim of having created the first cloned dog Snuppy is being questioned. Chips are rather down in the stem cell labs these days. However, the Netizen and geek’s world was abuzz with the Google success story new services, like Google Earth, Google Moon and GMail, were launched and Apple unveiling its iPod Nano and Video. Motorola tied up with Apple to bring the first iPod phone Rokr (bit of a disappointment).
Not to be outdone, Sony immediately launched its Walkman phone. A poll voted the original Sony Walkman as the best gadget in 50 years with the iPod coming in second.
