1998 in science
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The year 1998 in science and technology involved many events, some of which are included below.
Astronomy and space exploration
- January–September – Cosmologists from the Supernova Cosmology Project led by Saul Perlmutter and the High-z Supernova Search Team led by Adam Riess and Brian Schmidt publish evidence that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.[1][2][3]
- January 6 – The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon and later finds evidence for frozen water on the moon's surface.
- February 26 – Total solar eclipse
- March 2 – Data sent from the Galileo space probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
- March 5 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket-fuelling station.
- March 13 – Penumbral lunar eclipse
- July 5 – Japan launches a probe to Mars, and thus joins the United States and Russia as a space-exploring nation.
- August 8 – Penumbral lunar eclipse
- August 22 – Annular solar eclipse
- September 6 – Penumbral lunar eclipse
- October 29 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.
- November 20 – Zarya, the first module of the International Space Station, is launched.
- The first of four 8.4 m reflecting telescopes opens in the Very Large Telescope program of the European Southern Observatory at Cerro Paranal in Chile.
Computer science
- February 10 – XML is published as a recommendation of the W3C.
- June 2 – The CIH virus is discovered in Taiwan.
- September 4 – Google, Inc. is founded in Menlo Park, California, by Stanford University PhD candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin to promote their web search engine.
- November 7 – Sega release the Dreamcast, the first sixth generation home video game console, in Japan.
- The first working 2-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance computer is demonstrated at the University of California, Berkeley.
- Tiger Electronics launch the Furby electronic toy, the first domestic robot.
Geology
- February 4 – An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000.
- March 14 – An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran.
- May 30 – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits northern Afghanistan killing up to 5,000.
- July 17 – A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
Mathematics
- Luca Cardelli and Andrew D. Gordon develop ambient calculus.
- Thomas Callister Hales (almost certainly) proves the Kepler conjecture.
Physics
- May 11 & 13 – Nuclear testing: The Pokhran-II: India detonates the five nuclear devices in Pokhran Test Range, an Indian Army base.
- May 28 – Nuclear testing: The Chagai-I: In response to India, Pakistan conducts five underground and simultaneous nuclear weapon-testing experiments in the Chagai Hills, thus becoming the first nuclear weapon state in the Muslim world and the seventh in the world.
- May 30 – Nuclear testing: The Chagai-II: As part of a tit-for-tat policy, a final plutonium implosion test is carried out in the Kharan Desert.
- June 5 – Experimental proof is obtained that neutrinos have mass.[4]
Physiology and medicine
- January 14 – Researchers in Dallas, Texas, present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).
- February 19 – RNA interference first elucidated in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.
- February 28 – Andrew Wakefield publishes a case series (subsequently partially retracted) in The Lancet of twelve children with gastroenterological and autistic spectrum disorders believed to have first presented soon after receipt of the MMR vaccine.[5][6]
- May – Dr. Friedrich-Wilhelm Mohr performs the first robotically assisted coronary artery bypass surgery, at the Leipzig Heart Centre in Germany using the da Vinci Surgical System;[7] later in the year, Dr. Ralph Damiano performs on 17 patients in Pennsylvania.[8]
- July 17 – Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.
- September 23 – The world's first medically successful hand transplantation is carried out by a team of surgeons in France.[9]
- December 11
- Bruce Beutler and colleagues publish their discovery that Toll-like receptor 4 functions as a lipopolysaccharide sensing receptor.[10]
- The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans becomes the first multicellular organism to have its whole genome sequencing published.[11]
Technology
- April 5 – In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshū, at a cost of about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the longest-span suspension bridge in the world.
Publications
- Jacques Heyman – Structural Analysis: A Historical Approach (Cambridge University Press)[12]
Appointments
- Susan Greenfield appointed Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.[13]
Awards
- Fields Prize in Mathematics: Richard Ewen Borcherds, William Timothy Gowers, Maxim Kontsevich and Curtis T. McMullen
- Nobel Prize
- Turing Award: Jim Gray
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Karl Karekin Turekian
Deaths
- March 15 – Benjamin Spock (b. 1903), American pediatrician.
- March 16 – Sir Derek Barton (b. 1918), English-born organic chemist, Nobel laureate.
- May 9 – R. J. G. Savage (b. 1927), British palaeontologist.
- May 14 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas (b. 1890), American conservationist.
- May 22 – José Enrique Moyal (b. 1910), Jerusalem-born mathematical physicist.
- May 31 – Michio Suzuki (b. 1926), Japanese mathematician.
- July 3 – Danielle Bunten Berry, also known as Dan Bunten (b. 1949), American software developer.
- July 12 – Arkady Ostashev (b. 1925), Soviet Russian engineer and rocket scientist.
- July 14 – Miroslav Holub (b. 1923), Czech immunologist and poet.
- July 21 – Alan Shepard (b. 1923), American astronaut.
- August 4 – Yury Artyukhin (b. 1930), Soviet Russian cosmonaut.
- August 26 – Frederick Reines (b. 1918), American physicist, Nobel laureate.
- October 10 – Konstantin Petrzhak (b. 1907), Soviet Russian physicist.
- October 28 – Tommy Flowers (b. 1905), English computer engineer.
- November 12 – Sally Shlaer (b. 1938), US mathematician and engineer
- December 5 – Hazel Bishop (b. 1906), American cosmetic chemist.
- December 7 – Martin Rodbell (b. 1925), American biochemist and molecular endocrinologist, Nobel laureate.
- December 17 – Claudia Benton (b. c.1959), American pediatric neurologist (murdered).
- December 18 – Lev Dyomin (b. 1926), Soviet Russian cosmonaut.
- December 20 – Sir Alan Hodgkin (b. 1914), English physiologist, Nobel laureate.
- December 28 – Robert Rosen (b. 1934), American theoretical biologist.
References
- ↑ Perlmutter, S.; et al. (1998-01-01). "Discovery of a supernova explosion at half the age of the Universe". Nature. 391 (6662): 51–4. arXiv:astro-ph/9712212. Bibcode:1998Natur.391...51P. doi:10.1038/34124. Retrieved 2011-10-06.
- ↑ Riess, Adam G.; et al. (September 1998). "Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant". The Astronomical Journal. 116 (3): 1009–38. arXiv:astro-ph/9805201. Bibcode:1998AJ....116.1009R. doi:10.1086/300499. Retrieved 2011-10-06.
- ↑ Palmer, Jason (2011-10-04). "Nobel physics prize honours accelerating Universe find". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 2011-10-06.
- ↑ "Ghostly particles rule the universe". BBC News. June 5, 1998.
- ↑ Wakefield, A.J.; et al. (February 28, 1998). "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children". Lancet. 351 (9103): 637–41. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0. PMID 9500320. Retrieved 2 July 2011. (Retracted)
- ↑ Goldacre, Ben (2009). "The Media's MMR Hoax". Bad Science. London: Harper Perennial. pp. 290–331. ISBN 978-0-00-728487-0.
- ↑
- ↑ Homer, Trevor (2006). The Book of Origins. London: Portrait. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-7499-5110-8.
- ↑ "World's first hand transplant". BBC. 1998-09-25. Retrieved 2013-01-05.
- ↑ Poltorak, Alexander; et al. (December 1998). "Defective LPS signaling in C3H/HeJ and C57BL/10ScCr mice: mutations in Tlr4 gene". Science. 282 (5396): 2085–8. Bibcode:1998Sci...282.2085P. doi:10.1126/science.282.5396.2085. PMID 9851930. Retrieved 2011-10-06.
- ↑ With some small gaps. The C. elegans Sequencing Consortium (1998). "Genome sequence of the nematode C. elegans: A platform for investigating biology". Science. 282 (5396): 2012–2018. doi:10.1126/science.282.5396.2012. PMID 9851916.
- ↑ ISBN 0-521-62249-2.
- ↑ "Baroness Susan Greenfield". Royal Institution. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-04.
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