Top Biggest science news stories of 2022 as chosen by New Scientist

Nuclear power

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has sparked devastation across the country and affected many areas of life around the world, as both nations play a key role in the global supply chains for energy, food and more. It has also raised the spectre of nuclear weapons, with Russian president Vladimir Putin making not-so veiled threats about deploying his atomic arsenal. Thankfully, Armageddon has been avoided, but Russia’s offensive has sparked discussion of a new kind of nuclear war, as Ukraine’s nuclear power plants became a battleground this year.

In more positive nuclear news, a steady drumbeat of progress on fusion power in 2022 culminated in an announcement on 13 December that researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California had finally achieved a major breakthrough. The National Ignition Facility, a huge bank of lasers designed to heat a tiny core of hydrogen fuel and create intense pressure, is the first to create a fusion reaction in which more energy was produced than put in. There is still much, much more work to be done in making commercial fusion a reality, however.

With the third year of the coronavirus pandemic drawing to a close, covid-19 continues to be a major health issue for countries around the world, even as many have opened up and adopted “living with covid” strategies. Health services were also strained by outbreaks of a range of other viruses. The surprise emergence of monkeypox (later renamed mpox) in many nations lead the World Health Organization to declare its highest level of global health emergency in July. Uganda turned to lockdowns in an effort to control Ebola, while in the UK, levels of flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and strep A concerned health officials.

But again, there were positives. Gene therapies advanced greatly in 2022, with multiple good-news stories about children with severe genetic conditions receiving treatment. One girl’s therapy allowed her to walk and talk for the first time, while children who would previously have died at an early age can now expect typical life expectancies.

The field of xenotransplantation also saw significant advances, with the first transplant of a pig heart into a living human taking place on 7 January. The recipient, David Bennett, died two months later, but other work transplanting pig hearts into brain-dead humans on life support also showed the emerging promise of the technique, which could increase the supply of organs for donation.

One story that delighted millions throughout the year was the successful operation of the James Webb Space Telescope, following its launch at the end of 2021. The first images beamed down in July offered jaw-dropping views of the cosmos. After that, JWST went from strength to strength, whether that be taking pictures of planets in the solar system and further afield, or finding the oldest and most distant galaxies in the known universe.