Editing 2002 in science

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{{Year nav topic5|2002|science}}
{{Science year nav|2002}}

The year '''2002 in science''' and [[technology]] involved some significant events.

==Astronomy and space science==
* February 19 – [[NASA]]'s ''[[2001 Mars Odyssey]]'' [[space probe]] begins to map the surface of [[Mars]] using its thermal emission imaging system.
* May 26 – The ''Mars Odyssey'' finds signs of huge water ice deposits on the planet Mars.
* June 4 – The ringed [[dwarf planet]] [[Quaoar]] is discovered by astronomers [[Chad Trujillo]] and [[Michael E. Brown|Michael Brown]] at the [[Palomar Observatory]].<ref name=jpldataquaoar>{{cite web |type=2023-08-31 last obs |title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 50000 Quaoar ({{mp|2002 LM|60}}) |work=NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory |url=https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=Quaoar |access-date=5 July 2024 }}</ref>
* June 6 – [[2002 Eastern Mediterranean event]]: An object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters impacts with Earth's atmosphere over the Mediterranean and detonates in mid-air.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.spacedaily.com/news/deepimpact-02s.html|title=Near-Earth Objects Pose Threat, General Says|last=Bosker|first=A. J.|date=2002-09-17|website=Space Daily|accessdate=2016-06-04}}</ref>
* June 10 – [[Solar eclipse of June 10, 2002]]: Annular solar [[eclipse]].
* September 25 – 2002 Vitim event: Possible [[bolide]] impact in [[Irkutsk Oblast]], Russia.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2009/09/0925vitim-meteorite/|title=Mysterious Meteorite Dazzles Siberia|last=Alfred|first=Randy|date=2009-09-25|magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]|access-date=2016-06-04}}</ref>
* December 4 – [[Solar eclipse of December 4, 2002]]: Total solar eclipse.

==Biology==
* 1 March – [[DNA barcoding]] of the [[dodo]] is published, confirming it as a member of the [[Columbidae]] family.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1126/science.295.5560.1683|last1=Shapiro|first1=Beth|authorlink1=Beth Shapiro|display-authors=etal|year=2002|title=Flight of the Dodo|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=295|issue=5560|page=1683|pmid=11872833|url=http://pgl.soe.ucsc.edu/dodo_Shapiro02.pdf|access-date=2024-12-22|archive-date=2018-11-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120150854/https://pgl.soe.ucsc.edu/dodo_Shapiro02.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
* 18 April – New suborder of [[insect]]s, [[Mantophasmatidae]], announced.
* Publication of ''Systema Porifera: a guide to the classification of sponges'' edited by [[John Hooper (marine biologist)|John N. A. Hooper]] and Rob W. M. Van Soest.<ref>Kluwer/Plenum (New York) {{ISBN|0-306-47260-0}} (2 vols.)</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Berry|first=Lorraine|year=2003|title=Soaking up the limelight|journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]|volume=421|issue=6925|page=791|doi=10.1038/421791a|bibcode=2003Natur.421Q.791B|s2cid=766377|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1126/science.1082916|title=Invertebrate Zoology: Sorting Sponges: a review|first=Joseph|last=Pawlik|journal=Science|volume=299|issue=5614|pages=1846b–1847|date=2003-03-21|s2cid=85266676}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Chambers|first=Susan|year=2003|title=Systema Porifera|journal=Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems|volume=13|issue=5|pages=461–2|doi=10.1002/aqc.593}}</ref>

==Cartography==
* [[Hobo–Dyer projection]] commissioned.

==Computer science and cybernetics==
* January 7 – The [[iMac G4]] is introduced by [[Apple, Inc.]], as the next generation [[iMac]].
* March 14 – Prof. [[Kevin Warwick]] of the [[University of Reading]] in England has part of his nervous system experimentally linked to a computer.<ref>{{cite web|title=Cyborg study draws fire|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1886700.stm|publisher=[[BBC News]]|date=2002-03-22|accessdate=2010-10-07}}</ref> On June 10, he demonstrates the first direct electronic communication between the nervous systems of two humans.
* September 20 – Release of the [[Tor (anonymity network)|Tor anonymity network]] is announced.<ref>{{cite mailing list|last=Dingledine|first=Roger|title=pre-alpha: run an onion proxy now!|mailing-list=or-dev|date=2002-09-20|url=http://archives.seul.org/or/dev/Sep-2002/msg00019.html|accessdate=2008-07-17}}</ref>
* September 23 – The first version of the web browser [[Firefox]] is released by the [[Mozilla Organization]].
* October 1 – The [[Danger Hiptop]] is released, the first [[smartphone]] to incorporate [[instant messaging]].

==Earth sciences==
* January 17 – Eruption of [[Mount Nyiragongo]] in the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]], displacing an estimated 400,000 people.

==Mathematics==
* August 6 – Polynomial-time [[primality test]] published.
* November 12 – [[Grigori Perelman]] posts the first of a series of eprints to the [[arXiv]] in which he proves the century-old [[Poincaré conjecture]].

==Palaeoarchaeology==
* [[Ciampate del Diavolo]] (early hominid footprints in Italy) come to scientific attention.

==Philosophy==
{{main|2002 in philosophy}}

==Physics==
* March 8 – Claims regarding [[bubble fusion]], in which a table-top apparatus is reported as producing small-scale [[cold fusion|fusion]] in a liquid undergoing acoustic [[cavitation]], are published.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Taleyarkhan|first=R. P.|author-link = Rusi Taleyarkhan|author2=West, C. D.|author3=Cho, J. S.|author4=Lahey Jr., R. T.|author5=Nigmatulin, R.|author6=Block, R. C.|date=2002-03-08|title=Evidence for Nuclear Emissions During Acoustic Cavitation|pages=1868–73|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=295|issue=1868|url=http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/hottopics/bubble/index.shtml|doi=10.1126/science.1067589|accessdate=2012-03-15|pmid=11884748|bibcode=2002Sci...295.1868T|s2cid=11405525|issn=0036-8075|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
* May – Experimental discovery of a new type of radioactivity: the [[2-protons radioactivity]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Giovinazzo|first=J.|author2=Blank, B.|author3=Chartier, M.|author4=Czajkowski, S.|author5=Fleury, A.|author6=Lopez Jimenez, M. J.|author7=Pravikoff, M. S.|author8=Thomas, J.-C.|author9=de Oliveira Santos, F.|author10=Lewitowicz, M.|author11=Maslov, V.|author12=Stanoiu, M.|author13=Grzywacz, R.|author14=Pfützner, M.|author15=Borcea, C.|author16=Brown, B. A.|name-list-style=amp|date=2002-08-19|title=Two-Proton Radioactivity of F45en|pages=102501|journal=[[Physical Review Letters]]|volume=89|issue=10|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.102501|pmid=12225187|bibcode = 2002PhRvL..89j2501G }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Pfützner|first=M.|date=2002-05-28|title=First evidence for the two-proton decay of <sup>45</sup>Fe|pages=279–285|journal=[[European Physical Journal A|The European Physical Journal A]]|volume=14|issue=3|doi=10.1140/epja/i2002-10033-9|bibcode=2002EPJA...14..279P|display-authors=etal|citeseerx=10.1.1.183.4363|s2cid=120370209}}</ref>

==Physiology and medicine==
* February – [[Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells]] in the eye identified by [[Samer Hattar]] and colleagues.<ref>{{cite journal|year=2002|title=Melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells: architecture, projections, and intrinsic photosensitivity|journal=Science|volume=295|issue=5557|pages=1065–70|bibcode=2002Sci...295.1065H|doi=10.1126/science.1069609|pmc=2885915|pmid=11834834|author1=Hattar, Samer|display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|year=2002|title=Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock|journal=Science|volume=295|issue=5557|pages=1070–3|bibcode=2002Sci...295.1070B|doi=10.1126/science.1067262|pmid=11834835|author1=Berson, David M.|s2cid=30745140|display-authors=etal}}</ref>
* May 14 – [[Red wine]] is claimed by Spanish researchers to protect against the [[common cold]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1986514.stm|publisher=BBC News|title=Red wine 'protects from colds'|date=2002-05-14|accessdate=2013-03-21}}</ref>
* June – The gene [[BRAF (gene)|BRAF]] is shown to be faulty ([[Mutation|mutated]]) in some human [[cancers]].<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Davies, H.|author2=Bignell, G. R.|author3=Cox, C.|author4=Stephens, P.|author5=Edkins, S.|author6=Clegg, S.|author7=Teague, J.|author8=Woffendin, H.|author9=Garnett, M. J.|author10=Bottomley, W.|author11=Davis, N.|author12=Dicks, E.|author13=Ewing, R.|author14=Floyd, Y.|author15=Gray, K.|author16=Hall, S.|author17=Hawes, R.|author18=Hughes, J.|author19=Kosmidou, V.|author20=Menzies, A.|author21=Mould, C.|author22=Parker, A.|author23=Stevens, C.|author24=Watt, S.|author25=Hooper, S.|author26=Wilson, R.|author27=Jayatilake, H.|author28=Gusterson, B. A.|author29=Cooper, C.|author30=Shipley, J.|author31=Hargrave, D.|author32=Pritchard-Jones, K.|author33=Maitland, N.|author34=Chenevix-Trench, G.|author35=Riggins, G. J.|author36=Bigner, D. D.|author37=Palmieri, G.|author38=Cossu, A.|author39=Flanagan, A.|author40=Nicholson, A.|author41=Ho, J. W.|author42=Leung, S. Y.|author43=Yuen, S. T.|author44=Weber, B. L.|author45=Seigler, H. F.|author46=Darrow, T. L.|author47=Paterson, H.|author48=Marais, R.|author49=Marshall, C. J.|author50=Wooster, R.|author51=Stratton, M. R.|author52=Futreal, P. A.|author-link48=Richard Marais|author-link51=Michael Stratton|title=Mutations of the BRAF gene in human cancer|journal=Nature|volume=417|issue=6892|pages=949–54|date=June 2002|pmid=12068308|doi=10.1038/nature00766|url=http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/121/1/Davis%2CH_2002_pdf.pdf|bibcode=2002Natur.417..949D|s2cid=3071547}}</ref>
* November – [[Severe acute respiratory syndrome]] (SARS) [[epidemic]] begins in [[Guangdong]] province of China.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/table2004_04_21/en/index.html|title=Summary of probable SARS cases with onset of illness from 1 November 2002 to 31 July 2003|publisher=[[World Health Organization]]|year=2004|accessdate=2011-06-24| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110624025825/http://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/table2004_04_21/en/index.html| archive-date= 24 June 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref>
* December 19 – [[Clozapine]] is the first drug approved by the United States [[Food and Drug Administration]] for reducing the risk of [[suicidal behaviour]].

==Technology==
* November 4 – A [[Tactical High Energy Laser]] prototype shoots down an incoming artillery shell.
* [[Malcolm C. Smith]] introduces the [[Inerter (mechanical networks)|inerter]] in the study of the [[mechanical network]] in [[control theory]].<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = M. C. | title = Synthesis of mechanical networks: The inerter | doi = 10.1109/TAC.2002.803532 | journal = IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control | volume = 47 | issue = 10 | pages = 1648–1662 | year = 2002 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.227.7188 }}</ref>

==Awards==
* [[Fields Medal|Fields Prize in Mathematics]]: [[Laurent Lafforgue]] and [[Vladimir Voevodsky]]
* [[Nobel Prize]]s
** [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Chemistry]]
*** [[John B. Fenn]] ([[Virginia Commonwealth University]], Richmond, USA) and [[Koichi Tanaka]] ([[Shimadzu Corp.]], Kyoto, Japan) "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules"
*** [[Kurt Wüthrich]] ([[ETH Zurich|Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich]], Switzerland and [[The Scripps Research Institute]], La Jolla, USA) "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution"
** [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Physics]]
*** [[Raymond Davis Jr.]] (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) and [[Masatoshi Koshiba]] ([[International Center for Elementary Particle Physics]], University of Tokyo, Japan) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"
*** [[Riccardo Giacconi]] (Associated Universities Inc., Washington, D.C., USA) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"
** [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine|Medicine]]
*** [[Sydney Brenner]], [[H. Robert Horvitz]] and [[John E. Sulston]] "for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death"
* [[Turing Award]]: [[Ron Rivest]], [[Adi Shamir]], and [[Leonard Adleman]]
* [[Wollaston Medal]] for Geology: [[Rudolf Trumpy]]

==Deaths==
* January 8 – [[Alexander Prokhorov]] (b. [[1916 in science|1916]]), [[physicist]].
* February 6 – [[Max Perutz]] (b. [[1914 in science|1914]]), [[biologist]].
* February 10 – [[Harold Furth]] (b. [[1930 in science|1930]]), expert in [[plasma physics]] and [[nuclear fusion]].
* February 24 – [[David Hawkins (philosopher)|David Hawkins]] (b. [[1913 in science|1913]]), philosopher of science and mathematics and science educator.
* February 26 – [[Helen Megaw]] (b. [[1907 in science|1907]]), [[X-ray crystallography|crystallographer]].
* March 3 – [[Roy Porter]] (b. [[1946 in science|1946]]), [[medical historian]].
* April 9 – [[Leopold Vietoris]] (b. [[1891 in science|1891]]), [[mathematician]].
* April 18 – [[Thor Heyerdahl]] (b. [[1914 in science|1914]]), explorer, led the ''[[Kon-Tiki]]'' expedition.
* May 2 – [[W. T. Tutte]] (b. [[1917 in science|1917]]), mathematician and [[cryptanalyst]].
* May 20 – [[Stephen Jay Gould]] (b. [[1941 in science|1941]]), [[paleontologist]]/[[evolutionist]].
* June 20 – [[Erwin Chargaff]] (b. [[1905 in science|1905]]), [[biochemist]].
* June 29 – [[Ole-Johan Dahl]] (b. [[1931 in science|1931]]), [[computer scientist]], invented concepts in [[object-oriented programming]].
* June 30 – [[W. Maxwell Cowan]] (b. 1931), [[neuroanatomist]].
* July 4 – [[Laurent Schwartz]] (b. [[1915 in science|1915]]), [[mathematician]].
* August 6 – [[Edsger Dijkstra]] (b. [[1930 in science|1930]]), computer scientist.
* August 31 – [[George Porter]] (b. [[1920 in science|1920]]), [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Nobel laureate in chemistry]].
* September 6 – [[Orvan Hess]] (b. [[1906 in science|1906]]), [[obstetrician]].
* September 21 – [[Robert Lull Forward]] (b. [[1932 in science|1932]]), [[science fiction]] author and physicist.
* September 29 – [[Giuliana Tesoro]] (b. [[1921 in science|1921]]), Italian-American [[organic chemist]]
* October 18 – [[Nikolai Rukavishnikov]] (b. 1932), [[Astronaut|cosmonaut]].
* November 2 – [[Charles Sheffield]] (b. [[1935 in science|1935]]), science fiction author and physicist.
* November 11 – [[Esther Somerfeld-Ziskind]] (b. [[1901 in science|1901]]), neurologist and psychiatrist.

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:2002 In Science}}
[[Category:2002 in science| ]]
[[Category:21st century in science]]
[[Category:2000s in science]]