The uplifting science stories that turned heads in 2024

A total solar eclipse seen by millions, a lost jungle city discovered by accident, and hope for the nearly extinct northern white rhino: science has given us plenty to get excited about this year.

One of the biggest news stories was about the need to make space travel cheaper and easier, with Elon Musk’s Starship taking a giant step toward humanity having a reusable rocket.

Of course, not everything has been positive. Bad news for the planet, for example, it is now almost certain that 2024 will be the hottest year on record in the world.

But there was much to celebrate. Here are seven of our favorite uplifting science stories of the year.

In October, Elon Musk’s Starship rocket achieved a world first after part of it was captured on its return to the launch pad.

The SpaceX vehicle’s lower booster rocket returned to its launch tower, instead of falling into the sea. It was caught in a giant pair of mechanical arms, or “wands,” as part of its fifth flight ‘essay.

This brought SpaceX’s ambition closer to developing a fully reusable, rapidly deployable rocket to go to the Moon and perhaps even Mars.

“A day for the history books,” SpaceX engineers said as the booster landed safely.

You can learn more about the “baguettes” moment here.

They can walk, glide, and males can even sing love songs to woo mates – all with a brain smaller than the head of a pin.

But it wasn’t until October that scientists studying a fruit fly’s brain mapped the position, shape and connections of each of its 130,000 cells and 50 million connections.

This is the most detailed analysis of the brain of an adult animal. never before been produced, and a leading brain scientist has described the breakthrough as a “huge step forward” in our understanding of our own brains.

One of the leaders of the research said it would shed new light on “the mechanism of thought”. Read more about the story here.

Imagine you Googled something, got to page 16 of the results, and, “Wait, is this a lost Mayan city?”

Well, that’s what happened to Luke Auld-Thomas, a doctoral student at Tulane University in the United States, who came across a laser study carried out by a Mexican environmental monitoring organization.

When he processed the data with the methods used by archaeologists, he saw what others had missed: a huge ancient city which could have housed between 30,000 and 50,000 people at its peak between 750 and 850 AD.

In the vanished city beneath the canopy of the Mexican jungle, archaeologists have discovered pyramids, sports fields and amphitheaters.

The complex – which researchers named Valeriana – was revealed using Lidar, a type of laser survey that maps structures buried beneath vegetation.

There are only two northern white rhinos left in the world, but we have reported progress in fertility which gives hope for the preservation of the species.

Scientists have realized the world’s first IVF rhino pregnancysuccessfully transferring a lab-created rhino embryo to a surrogate mother.

The procedure was carried out with southern white rhinos, a subspecies closely related to northern white rhinos which still number in the thousands, and required 13 attempts.

The mother ultimately died from an infection, but an autopsy revealed that the 6.5cm male fetus was developing well and had a 95% chance of being born alive, demonstrating that a viable pregnancy through rhino IVF is possible.

There are 30 precious northern white rhino embryos, and the next step is to try IVF using them.

With human activity causing what the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) calls “catastrophic” loss of species, it sometimes feels like we don’t hear much good news about nature.

But a ten-year study showed that conservation measures are effective in reducing global biodiversity loss.

Scientists from dozens of research institutions examined 665 trials of conservation measures across countries and oceans and found that they had a positive effect in two out of three cases.

The measures ranged from hatching Chinook salmon to eradicating invasive algae, and the study’s authors said their findings offered a “ray of light” for those working to protect endangered animals and plants.

Read more about the story here.

Tens of millions of people in Mexico, the United States and Canada have had their heads turned, literally by a total solar eclipse.

This is where the Moon moves between Earth and the Sun, extinguishing its light.

A total solar eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth about every 18 months, but it often occurs in relatively sparsely populated areas, even though this one had large cities, including Dallas, in its path.

The path of totality – the area where people could see the Moon completely blocking the Sun – was also much wider this year than it was during 2017’s spectacular total solar eclipse.

To learn more about the story, read here.

Millions of people have already visited Sycamore Gap, the famous sycamore tree nestled in a gap in Hadrian’s Wall.

So when it was reduced in 2023of course, a national wave of shock and dismay followed.

But in March, new life sprung from the tree’s saved seeds and twigs, giving hope that this iconic tree has a future.

BBC News has seen the new filming during a rare visit to the secret National Trust center protecting the plants.

Young twigs and seeds thrown to the ground when the tree toppled were recovered by the National Trust, which cares for the site with the Northumberland National Park Authority.

The plants are now donated to charitygroups and individuals as “trees of hope”.