December: Microbots and Mutants

Okay, so the title is a bit of a lie. Again. But scientists did manage to grow eyes on the side of tadpoles' heads. Which pretty much makes them mutants. Why did they do this to the poor baby frogs? Well, it revealed an entirely new form of control over the formation of organs in the body. By altering voltage gradients, they were able to produce eyes in parts of the body that would never normally have eyes. While this may not have any clinical applications, it is an interesting find in the world of embryology.

Nanorobots were also new to the world in December. These are small (<1mm) machines that can be steered using magnets to the right place in the giant 3D maze of the circulatory system to detect disease and deliver the drugs needed. They have been in the pipeline since 2007, but development started in December last year.

In other science: 2 earth size exoplanets and 1 hospitable exoplanet in the Kepler system (Kepler-20e, 20f, and 22b respectively); engineers at MIT make a camera with 1 trillion frames per second, fast enough to capture light travelling across surfaces, and a potential vaccine for HIV goes into production.

April: Bumble Bees and Bloody Big Lasers

Stem Cells hit the news again in April as the first human heart was constructed using them. The Minnesota-based team created the organ using donated hearts that were stripped down to the collagen "scaffolding", then injected with stem cells, which specialised into heart cells in response to the structure they were injected into. While this technology is very far away from being able to be used in a clinical setting, this might open some doorways into stem cell transplants. 
Meanwhile in Japan, scientists have given mouse stem cells a specific combination of nutrients that has stimulated them into maturing into a functional retina: something to lookout for in the future for treatment of blind people.


The early Spring months also brought us news that mobile phones may be killing bumble bees, insects on which many crops and flowering plants lean on to survive. The research caused controversy in the bee-studying world, however, and many are skeptical about it, saying that there needs to be more research into air pollution and agriculture's effects on the creatures. There was no doubt about the need for research, though: the UN has already said that humans need to change their behavior in order to help bees survive, as we are so dependent on them.

In other science: the Extreme Light Infrastructure gets given the go-ahead by the European Commission. This is a collection of 3 lasers, each designed to emit pulses of greater power than has ever been used by human civilisation in order to try and break down vacuum itself.