Decade in Review: Science and Technology

7 Dec 2009, 9:15 am   -   Source: SBS - Shalailah Medhora
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Many scientific advances occurred in the last ten years (AP)

Many scientific advances occurred in the last ten years (AP)

The Noughties will be remembered for the amazing scientific and technological advances made in this decade.

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2000

-    Y2K bug turns out to be nothing more than global hysteria

-    World's first double hand transplant takes place in France. The patient, an unnamed man from western France, lost both his hands in a pyrotechnics accident

2001

-    Apple releases portable media player iPod. The range expands to iPod classics, iPod minis and Shuffle and iPod Touches. As of 2009, more than 220 million devices were sold

-    Around the same time, Apple introduces iTunes, an interface for the popular iPod, as well as a digital media player for Macs

-    Online music sharing site Napster closes down after a lawsuit filed by heavy metal band Metallica was successful

-    US President George W Bush prohibits federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. In 2009, new US President Barack Obama ends the ban imposed by his predecessor, saying that ideology should not hinder science

-    Wikipedia is launched by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales. By 2009, the internet encyclopedia contains three million articles

2002

-    Botox for cosmetic purposes approved. It is now the most common cosmetic procedure in the US

-    The previously unknown Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus is detected in China. The outbreak lasts for less than a year, but in that time 8,000 people are infected with SARS, and hundreds die after contracting it

2003

-    Shortly after the outbreak of SARS, an outbreak of Avian or bird flu is detected. The disease itself has been around since the 1800s, but has a very high mortality rate when contracted by humans. There is widespread culling of poultry, particularly in Asia, where most of the casualties occur

-    All seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia die when the shuttle breaks up over Texas, just minutes before it was due to land at the Kennedy Space Centre

-    Internet marketing company eUniverse launches MySpace. The social networking site peaks in 2006, before being abandoned by many users for other sites such as Facebook and Twitter

- Early versions of software application Skype is made available. The program allows users to chat and video-conference over the Internet

-    Concorde makes its last commercial flight, flying from London to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, marking the end of nearly 30 years of aviation glory

2004

-    The first of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers lands successfully

-    Photograph and video hosting site Flickr is launched

-    Facebook launches at Harvard University by student Mark Zuckerberg. At first, membership was restricted to Harvard students. It finally opened to the general public in 2006

2005

-    Friends Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim start up YouTube after having difficulties sharing videos taken at a dinner party

-    French woman Isabelle Dinoire becomes the first person in the world to receive a partial face transplant after being mauled by her dog. She braves the media for the first time in early 2006

2006

-    Micro-blogging site Twitter is launched, initially as a way for an individual to use an SMS-type service to communicate with a small group of people. The potential of this service is only just beginning to be released, particularly for those in the media

-    Pluto is downgraded from a planet by the International Astronomical Union, who deem the celestial body a dwarf planet because of the way it orbits the sun

-    The Therapeutic Goods Administration approves the use of cervical cancer vaccination, Gardasil, for females aged 9 to 26 years, and males aged 9 to 15 years. The Australian Government sets up an immunisation program in high schools

-    Nintendo Wii is introduced. The wireless motion-sensitive controls revolutionised the way computer games were played, and were hailed as an solution to the rising obesity levels in children

2007

-    Apple releases its iPhone, a device that is Internet-enabled, and has a camera and portable media player as well as the functions of a regular phone. The invention was made available in Australia nearly a year after its American release date

-    British rock band Radiohead release their album In Rainbows online. The band did not have a set price for the music, insisting fans can pay what they want to download the recording

2008

-    Transgender man Thomas Beatie announces he is pregnant. He appears on US talk show Oprah where is given an ultrasound, and gives birth to a baby girl in July. He had a second child, this time a boy, in June 2009

-    Polaroid Corporation announces it will cease to make its iconic instant film at the end of the year

2009

-    Scientists at Europe's Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) hope to recreate the Big Bang and understand the origins of the universe with their Large Hadron Collider. Technical difficulties close down the experiment half way through the year, however it successfully smashes its first atoms in November

-    A new strain of respiratory illness, swine flu, is identified in Mexico. The disease, later renamed H1N1, kills several thousand people around the world

-    NASA launches its lunar probe to learn more about the moon. It is the US's first lunar expedition in a decade. LCROSS findings show a significant amount of water on the moon

-    The probe comes as the world marks the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon. Despite the time that has passed since the monumental achievement, conspiracy theories regarding the event persist

-    The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st Century, lasting more than six and a half minutes, occurs over parts of Asia and the Pacific. It thought to be the most viewed eclipse of all time
 

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Your Comments

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Steve Savage - from Gold Coats, 2 years ago

Oops...my apologies, they were Austrian. My previous comment was based on my memory of SBS reports, but subsequent checking revealed the teleportation of photons has been widely successful in various countries. Quantum teleportation is also reportedly a success...bring on the hyper-computer age...

Sir

Steve Savage - from Gold Coast, 2 years ago

Maybe I misread it, but didn't some aussie scientists in a Melbourne University successfully teleport a photon earlier this decade? Surely that's decade newsworthy.....?

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