New scientific data are set yearly, and 2022 was no exception. A bacterial behemoth, an incredibly speedy supercomputer and a close-by black gap are among the many most notable superlatives of the yr.
Earliest surgical procedure
The first recognized surgical procedure was a leg amputation (SN: 10/8/22 & 10/22/22, p. 5). That’s the conclusion researchers got here to after investigating the skeleton of an individual who lived on the Indonesian island of Borneo about 31,000 years in the past. Healed bone the place the decrease left leg had been eliminated suggests the person survived for a number of years after the process. The discovery pushes surgical procedure’s origin again by some 20,000 years.
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Biggest single-celled bacterium
Bacteria usually dwell within the microscopic world. Not Thiomargarita magnifica. Averaging a couple of centimeter lengthy, this newfound bacterium is seen to the bare eye (SN: 7/16/22 & 7/30/22, p. 17). T. magnifica, which lives within the mangrove forests of the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles, is about 50 occasions bigger than different species of huge micro organism and about 5,000 occasions bigger than typical micro organism. Why this species developed into such an enormous is unknown.
Thiomargarita magnifica micro organism (a number of proven subsequent to a dime for scale) common about 1 centimeter lengthy.Thomas Tyml
Fastest supercomputer
A supercomputer named Frontier crunched numbers with mind-blowing velocity this yr: 1.1 quintillion operations per second (SN Online: 6/1/22). That makes the machine, run by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the primary exascale laptop — a pc that may carry out no less than 1018 operations per second. The subsequent quickest laptop tops out at 442 quadrillion (that’s 1015) operations per second. Exascale computing is predicted to result in breakthroughs in every part from local weather science to well being to particle physics.
Largest fish colony
Deep off the coast of Antarctica, icefish congregate in a breeding colony as large as Orlando, Fla. Some 60 million nests of Jonah’s icefish (Neopagetopsis ionah) stretch throughout no less than 240 sq. kilometers of seafloor (SN: 2/12/22, p. 12). Previously, nest-building species of fish had been recognized to assemble in solely the a whole lot. An considerable meals provide and entry to a zone of unusually heat water might clarify the exceptionally massive group.
Closest black gap
By sifting by information launched by the Gaia spacecraft, astrophysicists found a black gap that’s simply over 1,560 light-years from Earth (SN Online: 11/4/22). Dubbed Gaia BH1, it’s about twice as shut because the beforehand nearest recognized black gap. But that file might not stand. About 100 million black holes are predicted to exist within the Milky Way. Since most are invisible, they’re laborious to seek out. But when Gaia, which is exactly mapping a billion stars, releases its subsequent batch of information in just a few years, even nearer black holes might flip up.
