The year 2011 involved many significant scientific events, including the first artificial organ transplant, the launch of China's first space station and the growth of the world population to seven billion.
The year saw a total of 78 successful orbital spaceflights, as well as numerous advances in fields such as electronics, medicine, genetics, climatology and robotics.
2011 was declared the International Year of Forests and Chemistry by the United Nations.
7 July 2011: Swedish surgeons successfully carry out the world's first artificial
organ transplant
, giving a
cancer
patient a new, lab-grown
trachea
.
19 August 2011: the American
Office of Naval Research
successfully tests a new class of conventional explosive, reportedly five times more powerful than existing explosives.
2 September 2011: scientists create a working electric motor made from
a single molecule
(molecular-scale computer pictured).
14 September 2011:
NASA
publishes the design of its future heavy-lift rocket, the
Space Launch System
(concept art shown).
12 October 2011: scientists reconstruct the
genome
of the
Black Death
which devastated Europe in the 14th century.
14 December 2011: scientists develop an imaging system which can capture images at one trillion
frames per second
, allowing it to image the motion of individual light waves.
21 December 2011: researchers report that non-native
snakes
have devastated populations of small mammals in the
Florida Everglades
.
