2023 was a year of hope, at least for most countries. From economy to public health, the world finally seemed to be getting out of the gloomy atmosphere of suffering the relentless blows of the global coronavirus pandemic for over three years. In the Indian context, emotions transcended mere hope, finding expression in some remarkable achievements – including, easily the most significant – the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the Moon’s south pole. 

Here, we look at some of these achievements, which serve as beacons of inspiration, symbolising the determination of the human spirit in the face of unprecedented challenges.

CHANDRAYAAN-3

India scripted history on August 23 with the monumental success of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)’s ambitious Chandrayaan-3 mission. The mission’s accomplishment came nearly four years after Chandrayaan-2 failed to achieve soft landing on the Moon in September 2019. The event recorded India as the first nation to set foot near the lunar south pole, a region that had never been explored before. It also placed India among the elite club of countries to have landed on the Moon after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14, accomplished its three main objectives, including a successful soft landing, showcasing the roving capabilities, and conducting scientific experiments using the instruments on Vikram Lander and Pragyaan Rover. The experiments conducted for one lunar day (14 days on Earth) gave key insights into the Moon’s composition by recording the first seismic readings on the celestial object, confirming the presence of sulphur, oxygen and other elements, temperature variations that will enhance the mankind’s understanding of the Moon and pave the way for the future missions.

NOBEL PRIZE

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman on October 2 for their contribution towards the development of vaccines against Covid-19. “Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development,” the website explains. 

In our cells, genetic information encoded in DNA is transferred to messenger RNA (mRNA), which is used as a template for protein production. In mRNA technology, scientists use the virus’s mRNA (genetic code) to create an mRNA vaccine. After getting the shot, the cells read the mRNA and make a harmless piece of the virus, usually a protein. This viral protein is recognised by our immune system as ‘foreign’, and thus, it builds an immune response, so later, our body can fight in case the actual virus enters it. However, earlier mRNA tech was not as stable and produced inflammatory reactions. “The Nobel Laureates discovered that base-modified mRNA can be used to block activation of inflammatory reactions and increase protein production when mRNA is delivered to cells.”

GPT-4

GPT-4, launched March 14, is the latest milestone in the United States-based research firm OpenAI’s effort to scale up deep learning. It is a method in artificial intelligence (AI) that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain. As per Open AI, GPT-4 has outperformed ChatGPT-3 in “exhibiting human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks.”

These models have been trained on vast amounts of publicly available data from the internet and licensed third parties, as suggested by the organisation. Hailed as one of the best 200 inventions of 2023 by the US-based Time Magazine, it’s described as the “most powerful AI model to power a chatbot accessible to the public.”

ADITYA- L1

The Isro has confirmed that Aditya-L1 will likely reach its desired destination on January 6, giving an exciting kick-start to India’s space ambitions in 2024. The mission was launched on September 2.

The Isro aims to place Aditya L1 in a “halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.” The key objectives of the unmanned mission is to study the impact of solar activities on space weather in real-time, understanding “coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, propagation of particles and fields, etc,” the ISRO said. Lagrange points serve as good spots for observational studies. There are five such points in the Earth-Sun-like system – L1 to L5, with L1, L2 being closest to us. Notably, the US space agency Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope is stationed in L2.

NEW CARBON COMPOUND IN SPACE

In June, NASA’s James Webb Space, the successor to the famous Hubble telescope, made the discovery of a never-seen-before key carbon molecule in space, which is believed to be a cornerstone of interstellar organic chemistry. “Known as methyl cation, the molecule is important because it aids the formation of more complex carbon-based molecules. It was detected in a young star system known as d203-506, which is located about 1,350 light-years away in the Orion Nebula,” the Nasa said.

Carbon compounds form the foundations of all known life, hence the study of interstellar organic (carbon-containing) chemistry is of keen interest to scientists, who are interested in understanding how life developed on Earth, and how it could potentially develop elsewhere in our universe.

GAGANYAAN

India is making significant progress towards its first human space flight programme – Gaganyaan mission – which aims to place astronomers in a low earth orbit at an altitude of 400 kilometres for a three-day mission in 2025. In October, the mission achieved a successful milestone with the flawless execution of the first flight test vehicle, Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1). Conducted at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on October 21, the test involved launching a crew module to outer space and, bringing it back to Earth and recovering it after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal. Isro said the flight demonstrated and evaluated the Crew Escape System, including various separation systems, signalling a great start to the mission.

BRAIN DECODER

Human progress in developing brain-computer interfaces for translating brain signals into words holds immense potential – a technology which can aid communication for people who are unable to speak. Traditional interfaces, however, involve invasive brain surgery. In a notable development in May, the US federal agency National Institute of Health announced that their team, led by Dr Alexander Huth at the University of Texas at Austin, has been developing “a system to decode language using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals” – a non-invasive approach. The results of their work appeared in Nature Neuroscience on May 1.

“The researchers trained their semantic decoder on dozens of hours of brain activity data collected in an fMRI scanner from members of the lab,” the NIH explained. The team recorded fMRI signals from three different brain regions known to be active during language processing and sought the decoder’s help in translations. The team said it was a credible advance. “For a noninvasive method, this is a real leap forward compared to what’s been done before, which is typically single words or short sentences,” Huth says. “We’re getting the model to decode continuous language for extended periods of time with complicated ideas.”

RNA RETRIEVAL FROM EXTINCT ANIMAL

Researchers, said that they had effectively extracted RNA, the genetic material resembling DNA and found in all living cells, from the dehydrated skin tissue and muscle of a 130-year-old Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus). This specimen had been preserved since 1891 at a museum in Stockholm, the US’ NIH said.

The Tasmanian tiger, a carnivorous creature with stripes and a size comparable to a dog, once freely roamed the Australian continent but is now extinct because of humans. This achievement is particularly noteworthy as scientists had previously successfully extracted DNA from ancient animals and plants dating back over 2 million years. However, for the first time, they have successfully recovered RNA, a less stable genetic material. This groundbreaking discovery opens the door to sequencing and analysing ancient RNA, potentially advancing the efforts of scientists in recreating extinct species.

NATIONAL QUANTUM MISSION

India’s National Quantum Mission, launched in April, charts a course for fostering a robust ecosystem in Quantum Technology. Quantum tech deals with applications of quantum mechanics to build technology. Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour of matter and energy at the smallest scales, where existing laws of physics break down.

With a committed timeline extending until FY31 and a budget of approximately Rs 6,000 crore, the mission outlines several key objectives. These include building intermediate-scale quantum computers in 8 years, establishing satellite-based secure quantum communications spanning 2,000 kilometres within India, and extending quantum communications capabilities to interactions with other countries. The National Quantum Mission targets the development of Atomic Clocks, contributing to precision timing, enhanced communications, and improved navigation systems. 

DIFFUSING BREAST CANCER ‘TIME BOMB’

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide and claimed nearly 685,000 deaths in 2020 alone, as per the NIH. Earlier this year, London-based The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) announced that scientists had a breakthrough in understanding why breast cancer cells that have spread to the lungs may ‘wake up’ following years of sleep. The research published on March 13 in Nature Cancer showed the mechanism that triggered this breast cancer ‘time bomb’ – and suggested a strategy to defuse it.