1999 in science

none 1999 science 1999 The year 1999 in science and technology involved some significant events. Aeronautics February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in their balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes. March 3–20 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones successfully complete a non-stop circumnavigation of the world in a hot air balloon. Astronomy and space exploration thumb|Total solar eclipse of August 11, viewed from France January 31 – A total penumbral lunar eclipse. February 7 – Stardust is launched on a mission to collect samples of a comet coma, and return them to Earth. February 11 – Pluto moves outside the orbit of Neptune, remaining there until 2231.Weintraub David A. Is Pluto a Planet?: A Historical Journey through the Solar System 2014 Princeton University Press 978-1-4008-5297-0 250 https://books.google.com/books?id=dW1_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA250 February 16 – Annular solar eclipse, visible from Australia. July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean. July 28 – Partial lunar eclipse, visible from Australia, eastern Asia, and western North America. July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the Moon's surface. August 11 – Total solar eclipse, visible from Europe, across the Middle East, and ending in India. December 16 – The Beethoven Burst (GRB 991216) is one of the most powerful detected Gamma-ray bursts. NASA loses two Mars probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander. The Subaru 8.3 m and Gemini North 8.1 m reflecting telescopes open at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. The Cetus Dwarf galaxy is discovered. M–sigma relation first presented.David Merritt David Merritt F. Combes G. A. Mamon V. Charmandaris Black holes and galaxy evolution Dynamics of Galaxies: From the Early Universe to the Present 197 Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 221–232 1999 978-1-58381-024-8 2000ASPC..197..221M astro-ph/9910546 https://archive.org/details/xvthiapmeetingdy0197iapm/page/221 Biology November 1 – Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds comes into force. Late – Pest-exclusion fence around Zealandia (wildlife sanctuary) in Wellington, New Zealand, completed. The bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis is discovered off the coast of Namibia. At 0.3mm in diameter, it is largest bacteria 2016 yet discovered. Chemistry Elements 118 and 116 are claimed to be made for the first time; later retracted when results cannot be replicated. Computer science March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet. June – 2616 defines HTTP/1.1, the version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol in common use. September 21 – David Bowie's Hours becomes the first complete music album by a major artist available to download over the Internet in advance of the physical release.https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/22/business/the-flux-in-pop-music-has-a-distinctly-download-beat-to-it.html The Flux in Pop Music Has a Distinctly Download Beat to It Sue Cummings The New York Times 1999-09-22 2013-11-01 First working 3-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at IBM's Almaden Research Center. First execution of Grover's algorithm. The term 'Web 2.0' is coined by Darcy DiNucci.DiNucci Darcy 1999 Fragmented Future http://darcyd.com/fragmented_future.pdf live Print 53 4 32 https://web.archive.org/web/20111110143942/http://darcyd.com/fragmented_future.pdf 2011-11-10 2011-11-04 Probable date – First emojis introduced, in Japan.June 2019 Geology January 25 – A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000. August 17 – The 7.6 w İzmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 17,118–17,127 dead and 43,953–50,000 injured. History of science and technology Boris Chertok publishes «Ракеты и люди» (Rockets and people), a history of the Soviet rocket program. Mathematics Eric M. Rains and Neil Sloane extend tree counting.Tony Crilly 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know London Quercus 2007 978-1-84724-008-8 117 Thomas Callister Hales proves the honeycomb theorem.Hales Thomas C. January 2001 The Honeycomb Conjecture Discrete and Computational Geometry 25 1 1–22 math/9906042 10.1007/s004540010071 1797293 14849112 Paleontology First fossil of Kenyanthropus Pliocene hominin discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya. Physics June 18 – Bulgaria becomes a member of CERN. October 25 – Randall–Sundrum model presented by Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum.Randall Lisa Sundrum Raman 1999 Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension Physical Review Letters 83 17 3370–3 10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3370 1999PhRvL..83.3370R hep-ph/9905221Randall Lisa Sundrum Raman 1999 An Alternative to Compactification Physical Review Letters 83 23 4690–3 hep-th/9906064 1999PhRvL..83.4690R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.4690 18530420 Physiology and medicine April 16 – Russell Foster and his team at Imperial College London publish their discovery of the non-rod, non-cone, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) in the mammalian eye which provide input to the circadian rhythm system.Lucas R. J. Freedman M. S. Muñoz M. Garcia-Fernández J. M. Foster R. G. 1999-04-16 Regulation of the mammalian pineal by non-rod, non-cone, ocular photoreceptors https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.284.5413.505 Science 284 5413 505–507 0036-8075 10205062 10.1126/science.284.5413.505 1999Sci...284..505L subscription October – Huda Zoghbi demonstrates that Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2.10.1038/13810 Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in X-linked MECP2, encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 1999 Amir Ruthie E. Van den Veyver Ignatia Wan Mimi Tran Charles Francke Uta Zoghbi Huda Y. Nature Genetics 23 2 185–8 10508514 3350350 https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1099_185 subscription Psychology The Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias, is first described by American psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger.Kruger Justin Dunning David 1999 Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 6 1121–1134 10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121 10626367 2109278 Telecommunications January 19 – The first BlackBerry is released, using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network. Awards Nobel Prizes Physics – Gerardus 't Hooft, Martinus J.G. Veltman Chemistry – Ahmed H. Zewail Medicine – Günter Blobel Turing Award: Fred Brooks Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Frederick Dewey Deaths February 21 – Gertrude B. Elion (b. 1918), American pharmacologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. February 25 – Glenn T. Seaborg (b. 1912), American physical chemist, Nobel laureate in Chemistry. March 17 – Herbert E. Grier (b. 1911), American electrical engineer. April 28 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow (b. 1921), American physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics. May 8 – Edward Abraham (b. 1913), English biochemist. May 26 – Waldo Semon (b. 1898), American inventor. July 8 – Pete Conrad (b. 1930), American astronaut. November 11 – Vivian Fuchs (b. 1908), English geologist and explorer. November 25 – Pierre Bézier (b. 1910), French design engineer. References 1990s Science Category:20th century in science Category:1990s in science