All the most interesting things in one magazine. The most interesting discoveries in the natural world The most incredible discoveries in the world

The world is still fraught with many mysteries and secrets. We just need to be observant and curious, and keep looking for answers to questions that we don't think have answers. The development of science is currently extremely dynamic, and these incredible discoveries in 2016 are proof of this.

15. Largest known prime number

14. The ninth planet of the solar system

13. Eternal keeper of information

12. Fish that can move on land and climb trees

11. Brain implant that allows a paralyzed person to control his arm

10. Successful landing of the first stage of the rocket in the ocean

9. Turning carbon dioxide into stone

8. The scientific name for the pleasant tingling sensation in the back of the head

7. Second Moon

6. Eyeless Wonder Worm

5. Mathematical algorithm of our intelligence

4. Farting fish

3. Scientific explanation for entering the astral plane

2. Stem cells that can restore damaged spinal cord

1. The gene mutation that gave birth to us all

The curse of an ancient sorcerer brought dozens of scientists to the grave

In Podolsk, near Moscow, a pensioner kept mummified bodies in her apartment for a long time: a 12-year-old brother and a nine-year-old sister. The woman admitted: she did not have money to see her relatives off on their last journey. Nevertheless, the unfortunate woman was sent to a mental hospital. The police are establishing the circumstances of this wild story: why for so many years no one has missed the missing people or helped the old woman with the funeral. It is also surprising how the bodies lay unburied for so many years. Scientists have long been trying to solve the mystery of mummies. Read about incredible and scary discoveries.

View from the grave

The Capuchin catacombs in the Sicilian capital Palermo contain the remains of more than eight thousand people - mostly the local elite. The most famous part of the cemetery is the chapel of Saint Rosalia. In its center, on a marble pedestal in a glass coffin, lies a two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo. The girl died of pneumonia in 1920. The baby's grief-stricken parents asked a famous embalmer Alfredo Salafia save my daughter's body.

Baby Rosalia from Palermo: neither alive nor dead

Salafiya replaced the child's blood with a liquid composition of formaldehyde, alcohol, glycerin, antifungal salicylic acid and zinc salts. He kept the secret of the mixture a secret, which was discovered many years after his death. Baby Rosalia looked as if she were alive for decades: a gentle blush played on her cheeks, her skin was soft, her brown hair remained silky, and her eyelashes seemed about to flutter. Even the eyes remained blue. These eyes, by the way, almost drove one of the caretakers crazy: the light reflected from the cornea created the illusion that the child was watching someone. Lombardo's mummy was called the "sleeping beauty".

Only a few years ago, signs of decomposition appeared on Rosalia's body. The coffin was moved to a drier place and enclosed in a glass container filled with nitrogen.

The oldest mummy found in Europe is the Tyrolean Iceman, or Ötzi. Its age is 5300 years. On September 19, 1991, the remains of an ancient man were discovered by German climbers when the ice melted at an altitude of more than three thousand meters. They extracted the artifact without using archaeological tools, and inadvertently injured their hip.

Most researchers agreed: during his lifetime, Ötzi was a priest or sorcerer. His skin is covered with tattoos, there is an amulet on his body, and prehistoric sanctuaries have been discovered near the place where the ice man was found.

Scientists believe that Ötzi died during a clash between two communities: he was shot from behind with an arrow.

In 1998, the mummy was exhibited at the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology in Bolzano, Italy. But not everyone dared to look at Ötzi - they said that those who approached him died a bad death.

Forensic expert Rainer Henn, who spoke about the study of the Iceman at a press conference, died in a car accident. The climber who discovered Ötzi Kurt Fritz died in an avalanche. Journalist Rainer Holtz, who made a film about the Tyrolean find, died of brain cancer. Helmut Simon, looking for traces of other ancient people in the mountains, fell into a crevasse - the icy corpse was found after a two-week search in the same position as Ötzi. Dieter Wernicke, a member of the expedition to evacuate the Iceman, died of a heart attack. Passed away and Tom Loy, who examined Ötzi's belongings and recovered his DNA. Scientist from the University of Innsbruck Conrad Spindler suffered a stroke.

Think about it!

• In February 1923, the Egyptologist Howard Carter and amateur archaeologist Lord George Carnarvon discovered the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun. Two days later, all of Cairo suddenly lost power. Within a year, six participants in the opening of the sarcophagus died. There are a total of 22 victims of the “curse of Tutankhamun”. Carter was the last to die, in 1939 from Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Annoyed my mother

In 2006, after the death of her husband, a resident of Essentuki Lyudmila Lysenko became seriously ill. 60-year-old son Vladimir came from St. Petersburg to care for his mother. The neighbors knew about Lyudmila Alexandrovna’s serious condition, but they heard from Vladimir that she had gone to work as a nurse in Sochi. “I’ll bring it back in the fall,” he added. However, in the fall, the granny did not appear, and vigilant neighbors reported this to the local police officer. He looked at Lysenko and looked around the apartment. One of the rooms was locked and, despite Vladimir’s protests, it had to be opened. What they saw plunged everyone into a stupor: a mummy was lying on Lyudmila Alexandrovna’s bed.

Vladimir LYSENKO gave his parent a bad experience. Frame: Youtube.com

To the police, Lysenko admitted that his mother died three months ago, but he did not want to bury the body where it would be “eaten by worms.” Vladimir placed an oilcloth under the corpse and covered the body with salt. He placed a heater nearby - under the influence of hot air, the salt evaporated the moisture, and the body mummified.

When the secret became clear, Vladimir escaped punishment - he was only obliged to return the pension to his mother, which he had received for two years instead of the deceased.

Tales of Hoffmann

1719 Near the city of Falun in Sweden, miners stumbled upon the body of a young man. None of the miners could identify the guy. Due to the fact that the vitriol soaked the skin and clothes of the young man, the corpse turned to stone.

The terrible discovery was put on public display. Seeing him, an elderly lady named Lucille gasped: it was her lover Mats Israelsson, who disappeared 42 years ago. Once he asked Lucille out on a date, but he didn’t show up. No one ever saw him again - he disappeared. Lucille married Mats' friend Roy. There were rumors that it was Roy who was involved in the disappearance of the miner: a guy in love with Lucille could simply eliminate his rival. He may have thrown Israelsson down the shaft.

In 1749, Mats’s mummy was buried, but 100 years later it was dug up and exhibited again in the museum: traces of decay barely touched the dead body. Only in 1930 did the unfortunate miner find his final rest in the cemetery in Falun.

BY THE WAY

• The legend of the tragic love of Mats and Lucille formed the basis of the short story “Falun Mines” Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann.

Knight-Adulterer

In the 17th century, a knight lived in Brandenburg, Germany Christian Friedrich von Kalbutz. Brave, but he is also a reveler and a libertine: he made 30 children on his side and did not hesitate to use the “right of the first night,” depriving poor girls of their innocence.

Maria Leppin von Kalbutz called, as usual, to himself and was ready to get down to business, when the beauty gave in. Enraged, Christian killed Mary's fiancé. But at the trial he did not confess and even assured: if he lied, after death his body would not be touched by rot.

The Rake Knight breathed his last at the age of 52. He was buried in a tomb near the church. And a hundred years later, during the renovation of the cathedral, they decided to rebury it. The coffin was opened - von Kalbutz's body did not undergo decomposition.

Scientists gave the following explanation for this case: most likely, the man withered away during his lifetime - he suffered from cancer, muscular dystrophy or tuberculosis. The exhausted body was buried in an oak coffin, which ensured hermeticity and protected it from external influences.

Half a century with a burden

Zara Abutalib from a village located in the vicinity of Casablanca in Morocco, at the age of 26 she already had three children. When the time came for the fourth to be born, the woman was sent to the maternity hospital, where her roommate died during a caesarean section. Zara was also prepared for surgery, but the frightened woman ran home. However, her contractions never started - the fetus seemed to freeze inside.

Zara ABUTALIB saw her unborn child 49 years after conception

The Moroccan woman lived to be 75 when she began to suffer from hellish stomach pains. An ultrasound showed that the long-term pregnancy was ectopic and the fetus still remains in Zara’s body. After an eight-hour operation, the woman was shown the two-kilogram mummy of the baby she had carried in her womb for almost half a century.

The phenomenon in which a fetus that has died in the uterus or abdominal cavity becomes fossilized is called “lithopedion.” Calcification occurs if the unborn baby is too large to be absorbed into the body.

Digital only

• The Guanajuato Museum in Mexico displays 111 naturally preserved mummies.

Think about it!

• In 1972, near the settlement of Qilakitsoq in Greenland, scientists found the remains of members of an Eskimo family. The mummy of a one-year-old boy who suffered from Down syndrome is kept in the National Museum of the island. Caretakers claim that they often hear children crying, which can last all night.

Johnson's great-grandmother was treated for syphilis

During the restoration of one of the churches in Basel, Switzerland, scientists came across the mummy of a woman. The analysis showed a high content of mercury in her tissues, which was used to treat syphilis until the 19th century. It was because of the mercury that the corpse was preserved in excellent condition.

It turned out that the body belongs to Anna Katharina Bischoff. The lady was born in 1719 and died at 68 years old. But the most interesting thing: Anna Katarina turned out to be a relative of the head of the British Foreign Ministry Boris Johnson. Genetic analysis showed that on his mother's side, Johnson is the seventh-generation great-grandson of Bischoff.

So glad to hear about the late great-mum - a pioneer in the field of sexual health. “Very proud,” the British politician commented on the unexpected relationship.

Every year, scientists make the most incredible discoveries, from minor ones to turning points in the history of all mankind, from completely accidental ones to those that researchers have been pursuing for years and decades. Breakthroughs are occurring in completely different fields, from space exploration and archeology to biology and many other scientific fields. Some of these discoveries help us understand the world's most mysterious mysteries or allow us to see something completely incredible for the first time. Intrigued? From Martian tsunamis to the Shroud of Turin, here are 25 of the most amazing discoveries that will be hard to believe.

25. Headless Vikings from Dorset

In June 2009, archaeologists made a shocking discovery near the coastal town of Weymouth in the English county of Dorset (Weymouth, Dorset). During preparatory work for the opening of a new highway, local workers came across mass graves in which they discovered 54 skeletons and 51 skulls. The remains were buried in the area of ​​a Roman quarry that had long been abandoned. Experts believe that among the buried corpses were those who were decapitated during a public execution.

24. Galilean satellites

When the famous Italian Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei pointed his brand new telescope into the sky in January 1610, he had no idea that he would soon discover the 4 largest moons of Jupiter, now known as the Galilean moons. By and large, until that very moment, not a single scientist imagined that other planets could also have their own satellites.

23. Evolution of microbes

Antibiotics and vaccines have already saved millions of lives, but to the surprise of scientists, some microbes are developing and changing faster than we can find a way to destroy them. The flu virus, for example, mutates so quickly that last year's vaccines are no longer effective against new strains. It turns out that some hospitals are infected with bacteria that have become almost resistant to antibiotics, and if this is the case, then even a small cut can lead to life-threatening infections.

22. Moa birds

When moa bones were first discovered in the 1830s, biologists were not immediately able to get used to the idea that these were the remains of birds. These bones were so unusual and large that scientists were reluctant to recognize their belonging to the class of birds. Today we know that moas were huge animals and could not fly. They lived mainly in New Zealand, but did not survive to this day. Their extinction occurred approximately between 1300 and 1440 AD. The reason for the disappearance of such an unusual species was the exorbitant hunting of the Maori tribes, whose representatives settled the island at the end of the 14th century.

21. Yonaguni Monument

In 1987, while searching for a good place to observe hammerhead sharks, the head of the Yonaguni-Cho tourism association, Kihachiro Aratake, noticed unusual single formations in the seawater that resembled architectural structures. The discovery was made off the coast of Yonaguni, the southernmost landmass of Japan's Ryukyu archipelago. There is still no consensus in the scientific community about whether this formation is natural, whether man had a hand in it, or whether this place is entirely the fruit of human labor.

20. Baghdad battery

If you have lived without electricity for some time, you should know that batteries are a very important source of energy. The Baghdad battery proves that humanity tried to create batteries several thousand years ago. The battery is a set of 3 artifacts discovered in the Kuzhut Rabu area of ​​Iraq near Baghdad. The 2,000-year-old find consists of a ceramic pot, a metal cylinder and a rod. If the pot is filled with vinegar or a similar liquid, it can produce up to 1.1 volts of energy. No written explanations were found on the use of this ancient device, but archaeologists agreed that most likely it was an ancient battery.

19. Baby in the coffin of a mummified priest

Researchers from the University of Lund in Sweden (Lund) were incredibly surprised by the results of scanning the coffin of a Scandinavian mummified priest. Scientists have discovered the remains of a tiny baby hidden under a man's feet. Archaeologists believe that the child could either be a relative of the clergyman, or someone else's illegitimate child, whose remains were placed in the coffin so that the dead baby could be buried according to religious customs, despite its unholy origins.

18. Infrared radiation

Infrared rays were discovered by British astronomer William Herschel in 1800 when he studied the heating effects of different colors. In his experiments, the scientist used a prism to split light into a color spectrum, and thermometers to measure the thermal effect of each individual color. Today, infrared radiation is used in many areas of our lives, including heating systems, search engines, meteorology and astronomy.

17. Temperatures below absolute zero

Previously, scientists believed that −273.15° C was absolute zero, below which it was impossible to fall, and which was the limit for the thermodynamic temperature scale. However, a team of researchers from the German Max Planck Institute was recently able to disprove the theory of absolute zero. Under vacuum conditions, scientists managed to cool a cloud of gas atoms to below −273.15° C. The result of the experiments was so unexpected that the researchers at first had no idea what to do with the frozen particles.

16. Martian tsunamis

Recently, scientists published studies proving that a powerful tsunami erupted on the surface approximately 3.4 million years ago. This discovery literally stunned members of the astronomical community. Experts believe that the red planet suffered a lot from two meteorite impacts, which provoked huge tidal waves that could reach up to 50 meters in height.

15. Stone balls of Costa Rica

In the river delta area on the small island of Isla del Cano, located in the territorial waters of the Republic of Costa Rica (Isla del Caño, Costa Rica), you can find very unusual stone formations. Also known as petrospheres, these man-made spheres are scattered throughout the island - over 300 of them have already been found on Isla del Cano. For the first time in modern times, these stones were found in the 1930s, when workers were clearing an area here for a banana plantation. According to researchers, the balls were made by the ancestors of the indigenous people who lived here during the Spanish invasion. Their exact age and purpose are still unknown.

14. The Mandela Effect

Today science fiction writers and some scientists are speculating on the topic of parallel worlds, but have you heard about parallel memories? Self-identified medium Fiona Broome says that while most people remember the death of legendary South African President Nelson Mandela in 2013 from old age and illness, there are those who remember his death in the 1980s, when Mandela was still in prison. The woman called this strange phenomenon the “Mandela Effect,” although all over the world people talk about alternative memories that are not at all about the apartheid-era hero.

13. Tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun

The tomb of King Tutankhamun, preserved almost intact, was discovered by Egyptologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in 1922. Tutankhamun was one of the most famous pharaohs, and his death at the age of 18 remains a mystery in ancient Egypt. The news of the archaeological find was so widely reported in the media around the world that it even spurred a revival of public interest in the history of ancient civilization.

12. Hurricane on Saturn

In 2013, a major hurricane was recorded by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Saturn. The epicenter of the storm was about 2,000 kilometers in diameter, and the speed of the clouds reached 530 kilometers per hour. On Earth, hurricanes are fed by warm ocean waters, but on Saturn there are no oceans or seas. And this leads scientists to a dead end, since it is not clear how else to explain the occurrence of such a serious storm on a distant planet.

11. Songs of humpback whales

Humpback whales make strange sounds that scientists have been unable to decipher for decades. In 2015, near the Hawaiian island of Maui, researchers recorded a completely new type of whale sound. The mysterious noise is so low that it is barely audible to the human ear. Biologists still cannot understand how humpback whales make these sounds and what their purpose is.

10. Moving stones

Death Valley National Park in California, USA, despite its gloomy name, can boast of a completely positive attitude, because even the stones come to life here. At the beginning of the 20th century, the public first heard about the migrating stones of this reserve, and since then many versions have been put forward about how they move. Experts offered a choice of theories about alien intervention and magnetic influence, or about the pranks of animals or simple jokers. But the answer was found quite recently - it turned out that the stones shifted under their own weight during strong winds moving the rock over a thin layer of ice.

9. Child sacrifices

In 1999, archaeologists working in the area of ​​Argentina's Llullaillaco volcano made a shocking discovery when they found three mummified children left to die of exposure during an ancient Inca religious ritual. The cruel tradition was carried out by the ancient Incas most often in honor of some important events, or to ward off natural disasters.

8. Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste was an American merchant ship marooned in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores. The ship sailed from New York to Genoa on November 7, 1872, and was discovered again only on December 5. Almost all the supplies were still on the ship, and even the personal belongings of the crew and captain lay in their places untouched. But the Mary Celeste team itself was not in sight. Since then, no one has heard of them, and this case is still considered one of the biggest mysteries in the history of modern navigation.

7. Black holes

Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating celestial objects we have ever discovered in deep space. These are space-time regions that have such a powerful gravitational force that it is simply impossible to get out of there. Albert Einstein was the first to predict the existence of these objects back in 1916, using only the theory of relativity. The term “black hole” itself appeared in 1967, and was coined by American astronomer John Wheeler, but the first black hole was truly discovered only in 1971.

6. Antikythra mechanism

It may sound crazy, but the first analog computer was created around 100 BC. The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient version of a computer that was used to predict the positions of astronomical bodies and eclipses. Discovered in July 1901 among the remains of a crashed ship off the Greek island of Antikytra, the device is believed to have been designed and installed by Greek scientists between 200 and 100 BC.

5. RNA interference

In 1998, through a series of experiments, scientists discovered that gene expression (the process of converting hereditary information from genes into functional RNA or protein) is controlled by a phenomenon later called RNA interference. This process protects us from viruses that try to invade our DNA and controls gene expression. For their work studying this phenomenon, scientists Craig Mello and Andrew Fire were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Subsequently, this discovery contributed to the study of gene silencing - turning off genes, which causes diseases such as high blood pressure and a number of other ailments.

4. Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is one of the most mysterious archaeological discoveries of all time. It is believed that this fabric is the same shroud in which Jesus Christ was buried. This long piece of fabric is stained with blood, and the dark imprint of a human body is clearly visible on it. The Catholic Church officially reported the existence of this item back in 1353, when it appeared in the church of the French commune of Lirey. However, the legend of the shroud has existed much longer, and the first mentions of it were known as early as 30 or 33 AD.

3. Voynich Manuscript

Perhaps one of the most mysterious manuscripts in human history, the Voynich manuscript is an amazing artifact, the origin and ownership of which is still completely unknown. The manuscript is full of illustrations of plants, strange symbols and diagrams, and is written in a mysterious language that does not belong to any civilization known to historians and archaeologists.

2. Extraterrestrial neutrinos and Antarctica

Using equipment from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, physicists have recently finally discovered evidence of the existence of cosmic rays beyond our solar system. These energetic beams are very difficult to detect, so scientists have to rely on studying neutrinos (subatomic particles) created when the beams interact with their surroundings.

1. Mass burial of animals

In 1971, paleontologists discovered a huge animal burial in a cornfield in Idaho. Once upon a time there was a basin of a large reservoir, and this place became the last refuge for the skeletons of almost 200 animals. Apparently, these animals died of suffocation approximately 12 million years ago and were hidden for a long time from prying eyes under a deep layer of volcanic ash. Following the unexpected discovery, the site was designated Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historic Park.

Photo sources:
25 – MaxPixel; 24 – Kevin Gill / flickr; 23 – serendigity / flickr; 22, 12, 8, 7, 4, 3, 1 – Wikimedia; 21 – Vincent Lou; 20 – Boynton / flickr; 19 – frankjuarez / flickr; 18 – AIRS, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder / flickr; 17 – Guy vandegrift, Gas thermometer and absolute zero; 16 – Pixabay; 15 – Rodtico21, Stone spheres of Costa Rica. Museo Nacional; 14 – Pixabay; 13 – Carsten Frenzl; 11 – hit Welles Wwelles14, Humpback stellwagen edit; 10 – Mike Baird / flickr; 9 – grooverpedro, Momias de Llullaillaco en la Provincia de Salta (Argentina); 6 – Marsyas; 5 – Pixabay; 2 – Wikipedia

Usually on New Year's holidays, all scientific and popular science media, including Nature and Science, make charts of the most scientific events, discoveries or publications of the year. But science is attractive not only for its large-scale events, but also for its quirks. the site decided to compile its own list of discoveries that, perhaps, do not have global significance, but are endearing to those who write about them due to their unusual nature.

"Ghost" at a depth of five kilometers

Scientists have made several interesting discoveries in the field of living and long-dead nature. So, in February, American scientists discovered an absolutely charming white translucent deep-sea octopus, which has no mantle fins, and the suckers on the tentacles are located in one row. This animal lives at a depth of almost five kilometers - it was there that it was captured by the camera of the Okeanos Explorer research vehicle. Without saying a word, everyone began to call this animal Casper: the octopus turned out to be very similar to a cartoon character. Alas, in December scientists already announced that the baby was facing extinction.

"White and fluffy"

Amazing discoveries can be made not only in the laboratory. One of the most important discoveries for scientific journalists not only of the year, but of the decade, perhaps, was made... in a jewelry store. In Myanmar (Burma) they bought a piece of amber that contained the tail of a baby dinosaur 99 million years ago. Fluffy tail. Micro-CT scans have already revealed the amazingly fine structure of the feathers. Well, imagine a white and fluffy tyrannosaurus! The remarkable discovery was published in the journal Current Biology.

Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM/ R.C. McKellar)

The tip of a preserved dinosaur tail fragment in amber

Our sharp-toothed ancestors

And in addition to the discovery that “softens” the appearance of the “terrible lizards,” we must add, of course, the opposite discovery. Paleontologists from several US universities marsupial, Didelphodon vorax, which lived at the same time as dinosaurs and had the strongest jaws among mammals. By the way, these animals, which lived about 70 million years ago, happily feasted on small dinosaurs.

The most extravagant death

The event itself, which will be discussed, we saw on Earth already the year before last. An automatic sky survey recorded a very bright flash, ASASSN-15lh, which, as it turned out, had been coming to us for four million years. And it’s good that it happened so far away: at the moment of its greatest brilliance, ASASSN-15lh was 20 times brighter than our entire galaxy! In 2015, scientists believed that this outbreak was a more or less ordinary supernova, the death of a star with the formation of a black hole, it was just that the star was very massive. However, after new observations in 2016, things were more unusual.

Indeed, it could not have happened without a black hole, but a small star could still live and live, but it flew too close to the supermassive black hole in the center of its galaxy. The fall of a star into a black hole and the release of excess matter gave rise to this unusually bright flare.

Between a neuron and a neutron star

If we talk about particles composed only of neutral baryons - neutrons, then so far we only know the neutron itself, which in its free form lives only 15 minutes and neutron stars live much longer. Recent experiments at the Japanese RIKEN Institute and the work of an international group of scientists with Russian participation have shown that a tetraneutron - four neutrons combined into one neutron "atom" - can exist for a very short time (about 10-22 seconds).

Antimatter becomes clearer

And more beautiful news from the world of exotic matter. Antiparticles - positron, antiproton and others - have been known since the 1930s. They have learned not only to obtain them, but also to use them in practice: the formation of positrons and their annihilation form the basis of such a powerful diagnostic method as positron emission tomography. In 1995, CERN managed to “assemble” an antihydrogen atom from an antiproton and a positron. And now, more than two decades later, scientists measure the spectrum of antihydrogen and compare it with the spectrum of ordinary hydrogen.

Finding "Terror"

Everything about this archaeological news is unusual. Firstly, another major discovery was made by underwater archaeologists, secondly, the unusual name of the found object, and thirdly, the famous name of the person associated with the find.

We are talking about the discovery of the second ship of the expedition of the famous British traveler and polar explorer John Franklin, who disappeared 168 years ago (for some reason in our country he is still sometimes confused with the other Franklin from the hundred-dollar bill). In 2014, underwater archaeologists already discovered the ship "Erebus" of the missing expedition. Now "Terror" has been found. The most amazing thing is that the ship was preserved so well that, according to researchers, it is worth raising it from a 24-meter depth, pumping out the water, and it will be able to float again.

Photos from open sources

2017 has ended and it’s time to take stock. Scientists, doctors, politicians and others have achieved something this year, taken many actions, thanks to which something has changed in our world. What happened over the past year in the field of science, what achievements and discoveries are worth noting? The top 10 most incredible and interesting scientific discoveries will help you figure this out.

1. Flooded Greenland

In 2017, a scientific group of 11 geologists put forward a theory that suggests Zealand meets all the necessary criteria to be considered a submerged continent. Most of this continent, approximately 93%, is located under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. According to scientists, this hypothetical continent was flooded 23 million years ago. However, it is currently impossible to say for sure whether this piece of land was completely dry or not. Scientists also believe that 60 million years have passed since Zealandia broke away from Australia.

2. Death is approaching

The approach of death can be felt very accurately, or rather not felt at all. As Swedish scientists have found, as death approaches, a person’s sense of smell becomes dulled and then completely disappears, and he ceases to distinguish odors. If you invite a person to smell and identify 13 odors, and he does not smell at least one of the proposed ones, then the person becomes 8% closer to his death.

3. Find in a Chinese landfill

Last year saw a Chinese landfill. A discovery was discovered there that caused a stir in the scientific world. Quite by accident, scientists found a unique mold that can recycle plastic objects. It was previously thought that plastics take between 300 and 500 years to degrade. But now scientists are seriously thinking about destroying plastic waste with the help of this mold.

4. Immortal jellyfish

The jellyfish Thuritopsis nutricula is immortal. This statement was made by marine biologists. In short, from an old being it can be reborn back into an embryo, prolonging itself from generation to generation.

5. Narwhal Tusks

Researchers have long assumed that narwhals need their tusks only for mating and to attract females. But in May 2017, scientists from the Polar Research Department managed to capture on video the hunt of this amazing mammal, during which it used its tusk as a “club” for stunning prey.

6. The Moon takes oxygen from the Earth

The Moon spends most of its time in the solar wind in a stream of charged particles flowing from the sun. However, during 5 days of each lunar month, the Moon is blocked from the solar wind by the Earth, and the satellite ends up in the tail of the Earth’s magnetosphere filled with ions of Earth’s oxygen. The Moon, passing through the tail of the Earth's magnetosphere, collects oxygen ions that are formed in the ozone layer of the planet and, thus, accumulates Earth's oxygen.

7. Harbingers of the disaster that occurred in 10899 BC

In April 2017, scientists from the UK found stone pillars with drawings carved on them in the South-East of Turkey. According to researchers, they symbolize a global catastrophe that occurred in 10899 BC. The age of these finds coincides with the age of traces left by strong climate changes revealed by the analysis of ice samples in Greenland. Some drawings could symbolize the consequences of the cataclysm, because just at this time a period of sharp cooling began, caused by the fall of a meteorite.

8. Predicting the future

Last May, scientists experimentally proved that predicting the future is quite possible, and that not all predictors are charlatans. It turns out that the human brain, after some training, is able to complete a chain of events that have not yet happened and await us in the future. Moreover, in the imagination the future comes 2 times faster than in reality.

9. Plants can hear

The root system of plants determines by the sound of water in which direction it needs to grow, and tries to avoid some areas with unpleasant sounds. So it’s time to raise the question that plants are not at all as simple organisms as is commonly believed.

10. Editing a Person

Last year, scientists succeeded for the first time in correcting a defective gene in a human embryo. We were talking about the disease cardiomyopathy. This is a disease that causes a person’s heart to suddenly stop for no apparent reason. This disease is characterized by the fact that 50% of the genes for this disease existing in the parents can be passed on to the child. Scientists have created a special technology called “genetic scissors,” which can be used to find a defective gene on a DNA helix and cut it out to correct it. As a result of the experiment, it was possible to increase the number of healthy cells from 50% to 72%. In the future, the possession of such medical devices will help to further preserve human health.