• Research that produced “made-to-order” cell lines by reprogramming cells from ill patients, a method known as cellular reprogramming holds out hope of life-saving medical advances.

• For the first time this year, astronomers directly observed planets orbiting other stars, using special telescope techniques to distinguish the planets’ faint light from the stars’ bright glare.

• By sequencing genes from various cancer cells, researchers turned up dozens of mutations that remove the brakes on cell division and send the cell down the path to cancer.

• In 2008, researchers created a stir by discovering a whole second family of high-temperature superconductors, consisting of iron compounds instead of copper-and-oxygen-compounds.

Biochemists watched proteins bind to their targets, switch a cell’s metabolic state and contribute to a tissue’s properties.

• This year, researchers found a promising new tool for storing excess electricity generated from part-time sources like wind and solar power, in the form of a cobalt-phosphorus catalyst.

• In 2008, researchers observed in unprecedented detail the dance of cells in a developing embryo, recording and analyzing movies that trace the movements of the roughly 16,000 cells that make up the zebrafish embryo by the end of its first day of development.

• In a study that may offer new approaches to treating obesity, scientists discovered that they could morph “good” brown fat, which burns “bad” white fat to generate heat for the body, into muscle and vice versa

• Physicists now have the calculations in hand to show that the standard model, which describes most of the visible universe’s particles and their interactions, accurately predicts how much mass protons and neutrons have.

Thank you for viewing this showSource : Journal “Science”Pictures from webWishing you all a veryHappy New Year.Slideshare.net/atomplus