The uplifting science stories that turned heads in 2024

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

One of the biggest stories was about making space travel cheaper and easier, with Elon Musk’s Starship taking a giant step towards giving humanity a reusable rocket.

Of course, not everything has been positive. Bad news for the planet, for example, is that it is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the world’s warmest year ever recorded.

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

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

The SpaceX vehicle’s lower booster rocket flew back to its launch tower, rather than falling into the sea. It became trapped in a pair of giant mechanical arms, or “sticks,” as part of its fifth test flight.

It brought SpaceX’s ambition to develop a fully reusable, rapidly deployable rocket to the Moon and perhaps even Mars a big step closer.

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

Can read more about the ‘chopsticks’ moment here.

They can walk, float, and males can even sing love songs to woo their 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.

It was the most detailed analysis of the brain of an adult animal ever produced, and a leading brain specialist described the breakthrough as a “huge leap” in our understanding of our own brain.

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’ve searched for something on Google, you get to page 16 of the results and: “Wait, is that a lost Mayan city?”

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

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

In the city, which had disappeared under the jungle of Mexico, archaeologists found 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 reported a breakthrough in fertility that offered hope for saving the species.

The scientists managed The world’s first IVF rhino pregnancy.successfully transferring a lab-created rhino embryo into a surrogate mother.

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

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

There are 30 beautiful northern white rhino embryos. The next step would be to repeat the success with some of these embryos.

With human activity driving what conservation charity WWF calls a “catastrophic” loss of species, it can sometimes seem like we don’t hear much good news about nature.

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

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

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

Read more about the story here.

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

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

A total solar eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth about every 18 months, but it often occurs in fairly unpopulated areas, while this one had major 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 during the spectacular 2017 total solar eclipse.

For more information on the story, read here.

Millions of people once visited Sycamore Gap, the famous sycamore tree located in a gap in Hadrian’s Wall.

So when was it reduce in 2023Naturally, a national outpouring of shock and dismay followed.

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

BBC News saw the new footage. on a rare visit to the National Trust’s secret center that protects seedlings.

Young twigs and seeds thrown to the ground when the tree fell were rescued by the National Trust, which looks after the site alongside the Northumberland National Park Authority.

The saplings are now being donated to charities.groups and individuals as “trees of hope.”