Review of 2011: The year's biggest news at a glance

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228444.900-review-of-2011-the-years-biggest-news-at-a-glance.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

SEE SPECIALY MAY: How western science re equalizes, again, within Matriarchy...

• 31 December 2011
• Magazine issue 2844. Subscribe and save

Social media in the Arab Spring, Japanese megaquake and nuclear disaster, orgasms in the brain, HIV drugs, faster-than-light neutrinos, Higgs and more

Read more: "Smart Guide 2012: 10 ideas you'll want to understand"

JANUARY

• Egypt cuts its people off from the internet as the "Arab Spring" begins. In Syria, Tunisia and elsewhere citizens use social media to organise street protests

FEBRUARY

• IBM's supercomputer Watson takes on, and beats, two former winners of the US gameshow Jeopardy! Despite a few mistakes it easily wins the $1 million prize

MARCH

• Magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocks Japan, followed by a tsunami that devastates towns and leaves 20,000 dead or missing. Explosions at Fukushima nuclear plant lead to meltdown when the cooling system fails

APRIL

• A software bot called LIDA shows the first hints of consciousness by reacting just like a human when carrying out simple tasks

• Personal details of 77 million users are stolen after Sony's PlayStation Networkis hacked - forcing the firm to take it offline

MAY

• Author Kayt Sukel stimulates herself to climax in an fMRI scanner to learn more about the female orgasm, brains and the control of pain

JUNE

• Physicists at CERN manage to bottle atoms of anti-hydrogen for 1000 seconds - about 10,000 times longer than before

• Infamous "hacktivist" group LulzSec announces it is disbanding after "50 days of lulz", during which it attacked a number of corporate targets, including Fox News

JULY

• Space shuttle Atlantis lands at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for the last time, bringing the curtain down on the shuttle era after 135 missions

• Antiretroviral drugs shown to not only help those with HIV stay alive but also greatly reduce transmission of the virus to others

AUGUST

• World's first 3D-printed aircraft makes its maiden flight in the UK. The parts took just two days to design and five to print

SEPTEMBER

• Shock at claims that neutrinos have travelled faster than the speed of light - apparently breaking the existing laws of physics

OCTOBER

• First analysis of network of 43,000 companies shows a minority - mainly banks - hold a disproportionate amount of power over the global economy

NOVEMBER

• Breakthrough in Alzheimer's research as cognitive decline is reduced in two people - by jolting brain tissue with electrical impulses

• Launch of NASA's Martian rover, Curiosity, as part of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft. It is due to arrive at the Red Planet in August 2012

DECEMBER

• Two teams at the Large Hadron Collider announce they have found hints of a lightweight Higgs boson

• Climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, ends with agreement to accept targets on emissions in 2020