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1999 in science

Overview of the events of 1999 in science

The year 1999 in science and technology involved some significant events.

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Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in X-linked MECP2, encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2

nature.com

Aeronautics

February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in their balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
March 3–20 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones successfully complete a non-stop circumnavigation of the world in a hot air balloon.

Astronomy and space exploration

January 31 – A total penumbral lunar eclipse.
February 7 – Stardust is launched on a mission to collect samples of a comet coma, and return them to Earth.
February 16 – Annular solar eclipse, visible from Australia.
July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
July 28 – Partial lunar eclipse, visible from Australia, eastern Asia, and western North America.
July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the Moon's surface.
August 11 – Total solar eclipse, visible from Europe, across the Middle East, and ending in India.
December 16 – The Beethoven Burst (GRB 991216) is one of the most powerful detected Gamma-ray bursts.
NASA loses two Mars probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander.
The Subaru 8.3 m and Gemini North 8.1 m reflecting telescopes open at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii.
The Cetus Dwarf galaxy is discovered.
M–sigma relation first presented.¹

Biology

November 1 – Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds comes into force.
Late – Pest-exclusion fence around Zealandia (wildlife sanctuary) in Wellington, New Zealand, completed.
The bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis is discovered off the coast of Namibia. At 0.3mm in diameter, it is largest bacteria yet[update] discovered.

Chemistry

Elements 118 and 116 are claimed to be made for the first time; later retracted when results cannot be replicated.

Computer science

March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
June – RFC 2616 defines HTTP/1.1, the version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol in common use.
September 21 – David Bowie's Hours becomes the first complete music album by a major artist available to download over the Internet in advance of the physical release.²
First working 3-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at IBM's Almaden Research Center. First execution of Grover's algorithm.
The term 'Web 2.0' is coined by Darcy DiNucci.³
Probable date – First emojis introduced, in Japan.

Geology

January 25 – A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.
August 17 – The 7.6 Mw  İzmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 17,118–17,127 dead and 43,953–50,000 injured.

History of science and technology

Boris Chertok publishes «Ракеты и люди» (Rockets and people), a history of the Soviet rocket program.

Mathematics

Eric M. Rains and Neil Sloane extend tree counting.⁴
Thomas Callister Hales proves the honeycomb conjecture.⁵

Paleontology

First fossil of Kenyanthropus Pliocene hominin discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya.

Physics

June 18 – Bulgaria becomes a member of CERN.
October 25 – Randall–Sundrum model presented by Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum.⁶ ⁷

Physiology and medicine

April 16 – Russell Foster and his team at Imperial College London publish their discovery of the non-rod, non-cone, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) in the mammalian eye which provide input to the circadian rhythm system.⁸
October – Huda Zoghbi demonstrates that Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2.⁹

Telecommunications

January 19 – The first BlackBerry is released, using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network.

Awards

Deaths

February 21 – Gertrude B. Elion (b. 1918), American pharmacologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
February 25 – Glenn T. Seaborg (b. 1912), American physical chemist, Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
March 17 – Herbert E. Grier (b. 1911), American electrical engineer.
April 28 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow (b. 1921), American physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics.
May 8 – Edward Abraham (b. 1913), English biochemist.
May 26 – Waldo Semon (b. 1898), American inventor.
July 8 – Pete Conrad (b. 1930), American astronaut.
November 11 – Vivian Fuchs (b. 1908), English geologist and explorer.
November 25 – Pierre Bézier (b. 1910), French design engineer.

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References

Merritt, David (1999). "Black holes and galaxy evolution". In Combes, F.; Mamon, G. A.; Charmandaris, V. (eds.). Dynamics of Galaxies: From the Early Universe to the Present. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Vol. 197. pp. 221–232. arXiv:astro-ph/9910546. Bibcode:2000ASPC..197..221M. ISBN 978-1-58381-024-8. 978-1-58381-024-8 ↩
Cummings, Sue (1999-09-22). "The Flux in Pop Music Has a Distinctly Download Beat to It". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-11-01. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/22/business/the-flux-in-pop-music-has-a-distinctly-download-beat-to-it.html ↩
DiNucci, Darcy (1999). "Fragmented Future" (PDF). Print. 53 (4): 32. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-11-10. Retrieved 2011-11-04. http://darcyd.com/fragmented_future.pdf ↩
Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8. 978-1-84724-008-8 ↩
Hales, Thomas C. (January 2001). "The Honeycomb Conjecture". Discrete and Computational Geometry. 25 (1): 1–22. arXiv:math/9906042. doi:10.1007/s004540010071. MR 1797293. S2CID 14849112. /wiki/Discrete_and_Computational_Geometry ↩
Randall, Lisa; Sundrum, Raman (1999). "Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension". Physical Review Letters. 83 (17): 3370–3. arXiv:hep-ph/9905221. Bibcode:1999PhRvL..83.3370R. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3370. /wiki/Physical_Review_Letters ↩
Randall, Lisa; Sundrum, Raman (1999). "An Alternative to Compactification". Physical Review Letters. 83 (23): 4690–3. arXiv:hep-th/9906064. Bibcode:1999PhRvL..83.4690R. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.4690. S2CID 18530420. /wiki/ArXiv_(identifier) ↩
Lucas, R. J.; Freedman, M. S.; Muñoz, M.; Garcia-Fernández, J. M.; Foster, R. G. (1999-04-16). "Regulation of the mammalian pineal by non-rod, non-cone, ocular photoreceptors". Science. 284 (5413): 505–507. Bibcode:1999Sci...284..505L. doi:10.1126/science.284.5413.505. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 10205062. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.284.5413.505 ↩
Amir, Ruthie E.; Van den Veyver, Ignatia; Wan, Mimi; Tran, Charles; Francke, Uta; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (1999). "Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in X-linked MECP2, encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2". Nature Genetics. 23 (2): 185–8. doi:10.1038/13810. PMID 10508514. S2CID 3350350. https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1099_185 ↩