Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2004

TarrVetus writes "Science Magazine's The Top Ten Science Breakthroughs of 2004 have been announced. The winner: The NASA Rovers and their evidence of water on Mars. The runner up was the Hobbit species found in Indonesia. Other breakthroughs include cloned human embryos and the first discovered pulsar pair."

Comments

what about SpaceshipOne?

[hsmith]

I consider that a pretty awesome feat as i assume many others do

Re:what about SpaceshipOne?

[arkanes]

An impressive engineering, technical, and economic feat, but not one that really impacts science. It's not about the coolest applications of science, but rather about the coolest discoveries in science.

Discrediting mention of junk DNA

[lukesl]

As a biologist, I have to say that I'm incredibly disappointed by the inclusion of "junk" DNA in the list. I don't know what specific research results they're referring to when they say there's a breakthrough there, but the entire concept of "junk" DNA is absurd. I've never met a single molecular biologist who believed that non-coding regions were unimportant, and in fact it's been known for at least forty years that non-coding regions are important in regulation of gene expression. Maybe what bothers me most is the term "junk" DNA, which I've never actually heard another scientist use. It's a fictitious concept perpetuated by science writers so that they can feign surprise every time someone can attribute a function to a non-coding piece of DNA (and claim that the scientific community was surprised as well).

All that aside, I'm sure there are big breakthroughs in our understanding of the role of non-coding regions, and it probably deserves to be mentioned. However, one important point to make is that in spite of all this, there ARE parts of the genome that are unquestionably useless evolutionary vestiges. This is not necessarily mysterious, but it is interesting (for example, providing what is in my mind the most convincing evidence of evolution).