These are the most important scientific discoveries of 2024

A few days after the magazine ranking Nature, Science It also publishes its Top 10. While one aims to compile a list of the people who have made the most impact on science in this year that is about to end, the other summarizes the most significant scientific achievements.

For Sciencethis 2024 should be remembered as a year of exceptional achievements for the treatment of HIV, specifically with the results observed in the preventive drug that manages to protect against infection with a single injection every six months. Nevertheless, Science It gives space to other aspects: These 12 months were full of victories in the fields of biology, agriculture, physics, anthropology and geology. Let’s take a look at the top ten scientific achievements of the year.

A strategy to prevent HIV

Photography: Motortion; Getty Images

The biggest triumph of all of 2024 was HIV research. In the second half of the year, the results of two trials in different populations were released on the effectiveness of “lenacapavir”, a drug administered by injection once every six months as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PREP) compared to antiretrovirals. . The results showed that lenacapavir is completely effective in preventing HIV infections, greater than 90% of drugs taken orally. Its main advantage is that it only needs to be administered twice a year, which would solve the problem of adherence and combat the stigma associated with taking the treatment. Science underlines that the innovative nature of the drug also lies in its mechanism of action: it is an inhibitor of the capsid, the structure that surrounds the genetic material of the virus, which for a long time has been neglected as a pharmacological target.

DNA as a window to the past

Photography: Jordi Salas; Getty Images

Thanks to the results obtained by different teams, It has become clear that we can reconstruct the history of our ancestors and the societies in which they livedbased on the combined use of DNA analysis, information technologies and archaeology. The advances in this field are such that they also allow us to establish the degrees of kinship in the fossil remains found over the years, enriching anthropology studies like never before.

Rocket company SpaceX

Photograph: SpaceX / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images

On the space exploration front, there is no way Science Do not count among the scientific achievements of the past year those achieved by Space X’s Super Heavy rocket. The images of the rocket being removed from the Mechazilla launch pad by rods are memorable, and demonstrate that even expensive space missions can become a little more sustainable.

LiDAR, satellites, 3D and drones: the technology behind the archeology of the Great Temple of the Aztecs

The person in charge of the LiDAR survey in the Templo Mayor Project, Michelle-Marlene De Anda Rogel, talks with WIRED en Español about the technology that will count to the millimeter the vestiges of the sacred precinct of the Mexican capital

The eyes of the James Webb telescope

Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CFA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CFA)

The James Webb telescope has been in the news again this year, not only because it allows us to identify very old galaxies, which have amazed researchers for being large and bright. For the editors of Science, The need to investigate the “mysterious” aspects of the early universe from telescope observations is a noteworthy result. According to some specialists, these exceptional magnitudes and luminosities could be explained by the presence of stars or black holes.

Car-T against autoimmune diseases

Illustration: Thom Leach; Getty Images

It has not been an easy year for Car-T, therapies that strengthen the immune system to make it more capable of fighting diseased cells, such as cancerous ones. But while they were the subject of research aimed at clarifying the nature and extent of possible side effects, research into their possible use continued, landing in the field of autoimmune diseases. There are several trials with Car-T against autoimmune diseases: from lupus to myasthenia gravis and multiple sclerosis; and some have yielded encouraging results. Although they are still experimental, those obtained against lupus where Car-T have made it possible to abandon immunosuppressive drugs in some cases, are encouraging.

Precision pesticides

Photography: Vithun Khamsong; Getty Images

Agriculture and biotechnology intersect when it comes to new RNA-based pesticides, which are among the 2024 targets. The novelty is this: using the RNA interference mechanism, a system by which silencing is specifically the expression of certain genes, to develop very specific insecticides. Thanks to gene silencing, it is possible to directly attack the viability of the pathogen, counteracting the associated damage. Science highlights the case of RNA pesticides that have eradicated the potato beetle in the United States.

A new organelle

Photography: Solskin; Getty Images

We are not going too far in terms of scope when we talk about the “nitroplast”, a new cellular component that has recently been characterized and that could revolutionize agriculture in the future. The nitroplast is an organelle, a structure present within some algae with the function of fixing nitrogen. The researchers who they studied They believe that nitroplasts are nothing more than cyanobacteria embedded within algae. For Sciencethe discovery is worthy of being mentioned among the most influential of the year for two reasons: it demonstrates that not only bacteria can fix nitrogen, and because it could perhaps open the doors to the development of biotechnology.

The 10 people who marked science in 2024 according to Nature

Once again, the magazine lists experts who have made valuable contributions to the world community in the last twelve months.

Ancient multicellular organisms

Illustration: Science

In the Top 10 of Science there is a place for Qingshania. We don’t really know who he was, but given his age, 1.6 billion years, the uncertainties are more than granted. What is quite certain, and what makes it worthy of mention, is its nature: it is the oldest multicellular organism known to date. A fairly simple organism, with filaments of two or more cells that do not reach a millimeter in length. It is speculated that it could have been an algae.

A magnetic revolution

Photography: Andrew Brookes

This 2024 should be remembered for being a year in which the existence of a third type of magnetism was confirmed: “altermagnetism.”accompanied by ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. The discovery is attributed to German and Czech researchers, who explain how altermagnetism is a kind of middle ground between the two traditional forms.