We’re all moving on, done with 2022 and hopeful for 2023. But we’ll take some things with us. Much of it good, and much of the rest are things we’ve learned along the way. (Inspired by https://medium.com/magnetic/52-things-i-learned-in-2021-8481c4e0d409″>Tom Whitwell.)
In no particular order …
1. Toyota is now America’s top-selling automaker
2. We can put pig hearts in humans
3. A billion years of the planet’s history is missing, maybe
4. The digital cloud is impacting the planet
5. 20 things to learn about where you live
6. Life advice from NYC chess hustlers
7. Calculate the pizza exchange rate
8. Lack of advancement, development is why people quit
9. Staffing shortages may take years to resolve
10. We miscalculated the cost of the federal student loan program
11. Many states that restrict or ban abortion don’t teach kids about sex and pregnancy
12. That huge four-day work week trial worked, called a win-win
13. Facebook and your hospital may be in cahoots
14. We built a better battery, and gave it away
15. Saving seagrass is vitally important
16. Somewhere, spiders are dreaming right now, perhaps
17. 1.55 million households avoided eviction because of that 2020-2021 moratorium
19. We’re getting closer to understanding the human-neanderthal overlap
20. Following the black soldiers who biked across America
21. Uncovering the 1,400-Year-Old Native American canal in Alabama
22. Scientists are working on manipulating photosynthesis
23. When Twitter goes, we’re going to lose a lot
24. Early tools might have been intuited, rather than taught
25. Blowing on hot food is actually effective
26. New internet users don’t have the usual expectations and mindset
27. FEMA has a weather problem
28. LiDAR uncovers ancient monuments on the Belarus-Poland frontier
29. LiDAR is also helping flesh out a Mayan city in Mexico
30. We touched the sun
31. And, for the first time, purposely changing the motion of a celestial object
32. Parts of the Star Catalogue, the oldest known attempt to mark fixed stars, is revealed with new tech
33. On charting stars, we owe more to 19th century women than you may realize
34. Meanwhile, the Webb Telescope is just getting started and here are the first pics
35. We might be at a turning point in Alzheimer’s research
36. Children in poor socioeconomic conditions age more rapidly
37. Recipe: Super-soft cream cheese cookies
38. Scientists at MIT are studying why Oreos do what they do
39. But, then, one day, we might eat air
40. The simple genius of NYC’s water supply system
41. Turns out we might all be related
42. Artificial intelligence may make our biomes better
43. Yet another AI innovation, colorizing black and white photos
44. Deep learning can, for some reason, determine males from females based on their eyes
45. Data centers are becoming an energy concern
46. Dogs are learning about, and communicating with, buttons
47. VR seems to stimulate more dairy cattle milk production
48. There’s such a thing as mental health “warmlines” for those not in a crisis
49. Even masters can be stumped
50. Guns now kill more American kids than car accidents
51. Approximately 1 out of every 70 Americans 65+ died of Covid-19 in the past three years
52. There are now 8 billion people, and growing, on the planet
