For all those celebrity deaths and insane political shenanigans, 2016 actually gave
us some pretty weird scientific developments too.
From batteries that run on pee through to the world's first three parent baby, it was
a pretty nutso year.
But if January's developments are anything to go by then 2017 is gonna be even weirder,
because in the past month we've seen a human pig hybrid, a skin printing machine and the
potential discovery of a material theorised over a hundred years ago.
This is is our list of seven crazy recent scientific breakthroughs.
Number 7: Skin on Demand Making your own human skin suit is tough work these days, what with
all the DNA to clear up, the funny looks at the dry cleaners, not to mention the kerfuffle
in constructing a watertight alibi to fool the Feds.
But thanks to a group of Spanish scientists this problem no longer exists, as they've
developed the world's first 3D bioprinter capable of producing fully-functional human
skin.
This printer was the result of collaboration between the University Carlos the Third de
Madrid and the less flamboyantly named BioDan Group who specialise in regenerative medicines.
Their material mimics the structure of skin using a layer of collagen-producing fibroblasts,
and it's so close to the real thing it can be used in a wide range of fields, such as
testing cosmetics, creating android epidermis, covering human skin loss, and of course the
creation of a snappy little waistcoat for daddy.
Number 6: Pig Man In the real-life sequel to Babe nobody wanted or asked for, researchers
at California's Salk Institute announced in late January the successful creation of a
human-pig hybrid in the laboratory.
Now I'm not sure making a creature that’s addicted to eating strips of its own buttocks
is something I'd refer to as a success, but that's because Johnny Cynical over here doesn't
understand the ramifications of this amazing development.
The point of creating a human-pig chimera wasn't to exhibit it in some circus freak-show;
it was to provide a potential new source of human organs for transplant.
In this experiment, pig embryos were injected with human cells to see if they could survive,
and now that we know they can, we think it may eventually be possible to grow human organs
inside animals to make up the organ donor shortfall.
Wow, meat, milk, skin and now organs?
Thanks animals, you do a lot for us.
Those damn vegetables have got a lot of catching up to do, haven't you Mr Aubergine.
Number 5: A Fitting End To Fillings I hate going to the dentist, which is why I've pulled
out all of my own teeth and now I pay strangers to chew my food for me.
But if you still own all your original chompers then a trip to the mouth doctor may soon be
a lot less painful, thanks to a strange discovery made just a few weeks back.
Researchers at King's College London found that a drug used to help treat Alzheimers
has a nifty little side effect, namely, it can encourage your teeth to repair themselves.
Your teeth already do this on their own using dentine, but they don't produce enough to
fill large holes or cracks.
However, with a kick up the pants from a drug called Tideglusib an enzyme which prevents
dentine formation is turned off, and damage can be repaired naturally within as little
as six weeks.
I mean, that sounds great and all, but it's not as much fun as paying a guy down the bus
station to spit up food in your mouth like a little baby bird.
Number 4: A New Type of Life Ever wonder why the movie Gattaca was called Gattaca?
It's because the letters G, T, A and C are the initials of the four natural bases, Guanine,
Thymine, Cytosine and Adenine.
These pair up to form the base pairs of the DNA ladder, and different arrangements of
these pairs create different lifeforms when arranged together.
Everything from bacteria and baboons through to people and Penelope Cruz - who is not a
person, she is a Goddess - everything is based on just four natural bases; until some crazy
scientists decided to add two more.
On 23rd January 2017, Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute announced the creation
of an organism which held two artificial bases within its genetic code, making it the world's
first semi-synthetic organism.
Such a development has many possible applications, including the creation of organisms tailored
to fight certain diseases.
But right now I'm more worried about the title of that movie.
Gaxyttaxcy?
Xygattyaxca?
It's like they didn't even think about the ramifications of what they were doing to Ethan
Hawke's finest work?
Number 3: An End to Old Age?
In another piece of scientific razzle dazzle from the guys and girls at the Scripps Research
Institute, we may have just made one of the key discoveries in the fight
against cancer and aging.
In Mid-January a protein was identified which is responsible for determining the length
of your telomeres, which is important, as this in turn dictates how quickly your cells
age and whether they're likely to mutate into cancer.
Telomeres are like your cell's little clocks, and this protein named TZAP could be seen
as some form of battery, determining how long the clock runs for.
If we can stretch your telomeres we may be able to delay the aging process, but if they're
unnaturally long they then begin to pose an increased cancer risk.
It's like riding a see saw with whirring blades above and a pit of sex-raptors beneath you
- you wanna aim for somewhere in the middle.
Thankfully, TZAP naturally prevents your telomeres growing too much by trimming them to keep
them nice and short, and a further understanding of how they do this could help us get rid
of tumours and wrinkles all at once.
Awesome, those are two of the top three things I hate the most...along with sex-raptors of
course.
Number 2: Hot Damn Did you know that the Red Hot Chili Peppers can reduce your chances
of death?
Unfortunately we're talking about the food and not those delightful LA funk-monkeys,
but that's not gonna stop me using a bazillion song-title puns in this entry.
So how does it work?
Tell me baby.
Well if you listen to me for One Hot Minute I will.
Researchers at the Larner College of Medicine in Vermont used data taken from 16,000 Americans
over 23 years, and they discovered that those who Dosed their food with spicy chilies enjoyed
a 13% reduction in mortality rates from heart disease and stroke.
Obviously you Can't Stop death forever, because passing over to the Otherside is inevitable.
But even if you survive a stroke you can be left in a seriously debilitating condition,
as each one leaves Scar Tissue on your brain which can trigger seizures, leaving your life's
Fortune Faded.
So the knowledge that we can reduce strokes and heart attacks is clearly no Minor Thing.By
The Way, this revelation is old news to some, as historically, many people Around The World
already believed that spices contains mystical healing properties.
But this is the first time it's been confirmed scientifically.
And do you know who's excited about this the most?
Me and my me and my me and my me and my me and my friends.
We love spicy food.
Number 1: Metallic hydrogen The existence of a metallic form of hydrogen was first theorised
in 1935 by Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington, with the knowledge that if the
lightest of all elements could be turned into a metal it would prove to be a revolutionary
breakthrough for technology.
Super-efficient vehicles, improved electricity grids, stupidly fast computers and even space-faring
craft are just some of the possible applications for metallic hydrogen, so you can understand
why the scientific community collectively soiled itself on January 27th 2017, when one
group of Harvard scientists claim they'd managed to create some.
Their experiment used two diamonds to crush liquid hydrogen at a temperature far below
freezing point, because the pressure needed to create this substance is greater than you'd
find at the centre of the Earth.
The metallic hydrogen is still stuck between the two diamonds at the time of writing, as
it must be released gradually to see if it can exist in a stable form at room temperature,
so it remains to be seen whether this potentially ground-breaking material actually can be used
with purpose.
And furthermore, some physicists doubt whether the results of this experiment even prove
anything at all, saying that further evidence needs to be submitted to give this discovery
credence.
But I guess we'll find out soon enough if those naughty boys are telling porky pies
or not.
So that's our list, but if you're after more science-based intrigue of a different flavour,
why not check out our recent video on the seven most devastating things mankind could
discover, because these are the kind of breakthroughs you better hope we never make in our lifetimes.