Science News of the Year: 1998

(See below for subject headings)

Imagine opening a future issue of Science News, fresh from your mailbox, and seeing as the lead news headline "Science Solved: The Final Theory of Everything Worth Knowing." The rest of the magazine, and all issues thereafter, would be packed with descriptions of scientists detailing only small stuff, mundanely filling narrow crevices in perfectly satisfactory ideas. Not likely, I say.

Two years ago, however, writer John Horgan published a book claiming that in the next few years all the major scientific puzzles would be solved. The End of Science (1996, Helix Books) triggered an angry reaction from scientists. This year, John Maddox, retired editor of Nature, responded in his own book by mapping out what he sees as the unsolved but not intractable problems (What Remains to be Discovered, 1998, The Free Press). Horgan and Maddox recently continued the argument in a debate in New York.

I believe that Maddox is closer to the truth. Science News of the Year shows that 1998 brought impressive advances in several areas of science but no sign that scientists are approaching a finish line. Even more important than any list of unanswered questions is the set of problems that have not yet occurred to any of us.

For example, while the newest findings in cosmology (see p. 392) suggest an answer for the question of what fueled the Big Bang, that answer leads to a previously inconceivable question: Is there a multitude of universes? Further advances in all fields will open for exploration even more, often unexpected, territories and prompt questions beyond those that Maddox highlights in his book.

Scientific activity may slow if funding becomes more limited or if fewer talented students choose research careers. But as imaginative people continue to observe the world, they will create explanations for what they find and invent tests for their theories. There can be no shortage of topics for scientific inquiry, so I predict that the pages of Science News will remain chock-full of reports disclosing exciting findings.

—Julie Ann Miller, Editor

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Under the following headings are brief summaries of important science stories reported in 1998 in the pages of Science News Magazine.

Each story listed under these headings specifies the date of the issue, volume number, and page number on which the relevant article appeared in Science News. A reference that is underlined and shown in color represents a link to the full text of the article, available online.

Click on the subject headings below for Science News of 1998 in. . .