1999 in science explained

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

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 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 – 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 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

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Gerardus 't Hooft, Martinus J.G. Veltman
  • Chemistry – Ahmed H. Zewail
  • Medicine – Günter Blobel
• Turing Award: Fred Brooks
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Frederick Dewey

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.

Notes and References

1. Book: Merritt, David. David Merritt. F.. Combes. G. A.. Mamon. V.. Charmandaris. Black holes and galaxy evolution. Dynamics of Galaxies: From the Early Universe to the Present. 197. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 221–232. 1999. 978-1-58381-024-8. 2000ASPC..197..221M. astro-ph/9910546. https://archive.org/details/xvthiapmeetingdy0197iapm/page/221.
2. News: The Flux in Pop Music Has a Distinctly Download Beat to It. Sue. Cummings. The New York Times. 1999-09-22. 2013-11-01.
3. DiNucci. Darcy. 1999. Fragmented Future. live. Print. 53. 4. 32. https://web.archive.org/web/20111110143942/http://darcyd.com/fragmented_future.pdf. 2011-11-10. 2011-11-04.
4. Book: Crilly, Tony. 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London. Quercus. 2007. 978-1-84724-008-8. 117.
5. Hales. Thomas C.. January 2001. The Honeycomb Conjecture. Discrete and Computational Geometry. 25. 1. 1–22. math/9906042. 10.1007/s004540010071. 1797293. 14849112 .
6. Randall. Lisa. Sundrum. Raman. 1999. Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension. Physical Review Letters. 83. 17. 3370–3. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3370. 1999PhRvL..83.3370R. hep-ph/9905221.
7. Randall. Lisa. Sundrum. Raman. 1999. An Alternative to Compactification. Physical Review Letters. 83. 23. 4690–3. hep-th/9906064. 1999PhRvL..83.4690R. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.4690. 18530420.
8. 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. 0036-8075. 10205062. 10.1126/science.284.5413.505. 1999Sci...284..505L.
9. 10.1038/13810. Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in X-linked MECP2, encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2. 1999. Amir. Ruthie E.. Van den Veyver. Ignatia. Wan. Mimi. Tran. Charles. Francke. Uta. Zoghbi. Huda Y.. Nature Genetics. 23. 2. 185–8. 10508514. 3350350.