Eleven science stories likely to make big news in 2023

Researchers will continue to push to make the disease manageable as it enters its fourth year. They will track hundreds of subvariants of Omicron, a strain that was less lethal than the more lethal strain. The evolution of the virus this year will be watched to see if it has slowed or if a more dangerous variant pops up. New shots that provide broad protection against a variety of coronaviruses are one of the priorities of vaccine researchers. Public health specialists are concerned that vaccine hesitancy may continue and have long-term consequences for battles against diseases. Due to the evolution of the virus, several existing drugs are no longer effective.

Other areas of research and policy are expected to make headlines in the coming year.

The terms of an agreement requiring wealthy nations to help pay for damages caused by climate change will be debated by diplomats this year. The only new policy that emerged from the U.N. climate summit was the commitment. Climate change-related economic losses and property damage can be paid for by a new fund. They put off details such as which countries should pay and how the money should be spent. The details of this year's U.N. climate summit could be focused on. Observers are skeptical about the deal because wealthy nations have failed to fulfill past promises.

The U.S. National Institute of Health and the UK's Wellcome Trust are likely to get new directors this year. Francis Collins stepped down as director of the $47.5-billion-a-yearNIH in December 2021. The next leader of the agency, who will need Senate confirmation, will be in charge of the agency's efforts to boost diversity in the research workforce and likely face a grilling by Republican lawmakers. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was led by Anthony Fauci for 38 years before he stepped down. The director of the World Health Organization will leave early this year after a decade in that role, and a replacement will be sought by the organization.

There is a chance that the first approved medical treatment based on gene editing will happen in the new year. People with the two diseases carry defects in the genes that make up the haemoglobin in their blood. The companies have run clinical trials in which they remove a patient's blood stem cells, use the CRISPR gene-editing tool to switch on a healthy genes for fetal hemoglobin, and reinfuse the modified cells. Most patients have ended their severe pain episodes thanks to the one-time treatment. A decision on one side of the Atlantic could come by the end of the year. Cost will be the next thing to worry about. Gene therapy, an older approach that treats genetic disorders by adding rather than modifying genes, costs from $850,000 to $3.5 million.

The complete decoding of the genes of other multicellular organisms has not been done yet. The fruits of cheaper, more precise technologies will be revealed this year when a surge of nonhuman genome sequence is unveiled. 2000 Sequences are expected to be released this year by the Earth BioGenome Project. The Zoonomia Project has studied mammals, while the Darwin Tree of Life Project has looked at insects. More than 200 nonhuman primate will be released by two other groups. The new data will give scientists insights into evolution and life history, according to scientists.

This year, health authorities will try to eliminate human-to-human transmission of mpox, which exploded across the globe for the first time in 1992. The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency after more than 80,000 people were sick. Hundreds of cases were still reported every week despite the decline in new cases. The experts hope to better understand how much of the decline is due to infections and immunizations and how much is due to gay men changing their behavior. There are studies underway that could show how well the one vaccine protects against the disease. The test of global health policy will be the availability of the vaccine in African countries that have experienced mpox.

The Chinese Survey Space Telescope is one of three missions that China will launch this year. The Hubble Space Telescope has a field of view of less than a meter, but the Chinese telescope has a field of view 350 times larger. Dark matter and dark energy are mysterious phenomena that control the expansion of the universe. Xuntian will be able to dock for maintenance and will be launched in December of 2019. There are two x-ray observatories in cooperation with the European Space Agency.

A proposal to designate a geological span of time marked by humanity's indelible effects on the planet will soon be announced by researchers. The 1950s was chosen by the Anthropocene Working Group as the beginning of the era. There are 12 candidate sites around the world that contain lake muds, ice cores, or other features that clearly document the shift in emissions and could be used to formally define the new era. Three more committees will have to approve it after the working group makes a decision. If the definition is voted down, it will not be reconsidered for a decade. There is no guarantee of passage. The need to change a system that describes millions of years of geologic time is questioned by many geologists.

A vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease was approved in Europe last month and could soon be available in Indonesia. The Dengvaxia vaccine is only available for people who have previously been exposed to the virus. More than 28,000 people have been shown in multi country studies that the vaccine Qdenga can protect them from the disease. 100 million people a year are affected by the virus, and in rare cases it can lead to death. Scientists want to know more about Qdenga. Children who had never been exposed to the virus and received the vaccine had a higher risk of serious symptoms. The Qdenga trials have not encountered this problem, which may be linked to an unusual phenomenon in which antibodies to one group of dengue viruses enhance the ability of a different group to cause disease.

In his first year in office, Brazil's new left-wing president, Lula da Silva, is expected to revive efforts to protect the Amazon and fight climate change, reversing the pro-development agenda of his far-right predecessor. There are other demands on Brazil's budget that may limit enforcement. After the election of Brazil's president, Germany and Norway restored subsidies to support the preservation of the environment.

The idea of key events in the evolution of Homo happening in South Africa has been supported by new analyses. The earliest Homo fossils were found in east Africa more than two million years ago. It's possible that the fossils found last year at Drimolen quarry belonged to a direct human descendant called H. erectus, which may indicate that the species first appeared in South Africa. Analyses of other new South African fossils could help untangle the history of hominin species that lived in the area.