1999 in science

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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

Total solar eclipse of August 11, viewed from France

• 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.

Biology

• November 1 – Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds comes into force.
• The bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis is discovered off the coast of Namibia. At 0.3mm in diameter, it is largest bacteria yet discovered.

Chemistry

• Element 118 and 116 are claimed to be made for the first time. Later retracted when results could not 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.^[1]
• First working 3-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at IBM's Almaden Research Center. First execution of Grover's algorithm.

Geology

• January 25 – A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.
• August 17 – A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.

Mathematics

• Eric M. Rains and Neil Sloane extend tree counting.^[2]

Paleontology

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

Physics

• CERN: Bulgaria becomes a member of CERN.

Physiology and medicine

• Huda Zoghbi demonstrates that Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2.^[3]

Telecommunications

• 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.
• April 28 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow (b. 1921), American physicist, Nobel laureate in Physicist.
• 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.

References

1. 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.
2. Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8.
3. 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" (PDF). Nature Genetics 23 (2): 185–8. doi:10.1038/13810. PMID 10508514. Retrieved 2015-02-16.