2022 in science

The following scientific events occurred in 2022.

3 January: A free online index with metadata about over 200 million scientific documents is launched, OpenAlex. [ 1 ]
The graphs (full) show one visualization of recent developments of science overall based on this data (fewer papers may not be associated with decreasing success, priority, impact or activity). [ 2 ]
5 April: A study suggests that if "quintessence" is an explanation for dark-energy and current data is true as well, the world may start to end within the next 100 My, during which accelerating expansion of the Universe would inverse to contraction (a cyclic model ).
6 April: The first known dinosaur fossil linked to the actual day of the Chicxulub impact is reported.
6 April: A study decodes electrical communication between fungi into word-like components .
22 April: A study outlines rationale for space governance of satellites / space debris similar to terrestrial environmental regulations .
26 April: Results of the 'Global Carbon Budget 2021' pass peer-review , showing problematic continuation of GHG emissions trends. [ 60 ]
12 May: Sagittarius A* , black hole in the Galactic Center of the Milky Way, revealed by the Event Horizon Telescope team
12 May: Researchers identify the 425 biggest fossil fuel extraction projects globally, 40% of which haven't yet started extraction, that threaten climate change mitigation of global climate goals.
18 May and 2 May: Two separate studies show how two twin-universe cosmological models could each explain specific open problems of physics or cosmology .
21 May: The World Health Organization confirms a monkeypox outbreak in 12 non-endemic countries.
30 May: Frontier is confirmed as the world's first exascale supercomputer.
1 June: A study substantiates a novel theory of ageing – clonal diversity loss of hematopoietic stem cells – which could enable healthy aging .
3 June: The global CO 2 level exceeds the milestone of being 50% greater than in the pre-industrial era
24 June: Early 2022 monkeypox outbreak research finds the "presumably slow-evolving" DNA virus has evolved roughly 6–12-fold more mutations than one would expect.
24 June: NASA publishes images showing an unexpected double crater from what is thought to be the first time human space debris – likely by a spent rocket body – unintentionally hit the lunar surface on 4 March .
1 July: A new CRISPR gene editing/repair tool alternative to fully active Cas9 is reported.
12 July: The 'cosmic cliffs' of the Carina Nebula : One of the first images to be released from the now fully operational James Webb Space Telescope .
11 & 25 July: Deep learning systems learn intuitive basic physics similar to infants and any physics via potential variables-identification from only visual data (of virtual 3D environments).
25 July: Researchers introduce and demonstrate the concept of necrobotics .
28 July: AI company DeepMind reports that its AlphaFold program has determined the likely structure of nearly every protein known to science.
1 August: Researchers report that the risk of climate change (indirectly) resulting in worldwide societal collapse , or possibly eventual human extinction , is a "dangerously underexplored" global topic . [ 405 ]
24 August: The first rail line entirely run by hydrogen-powered trains debuts in Germany.
25 August: The first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope.
29 August: Scientists report the key molecular mechanisms of rejuvenation they found in a comparison of the newly presented genomes of the biologically immortal T. dohrnii and a similar but non-rejuvenating jellyfish .
15 September: Researchers describe a way by which the aging of select immune system T cells can be prevented or slowed down.
20 September: Astronomers report in a preprint the discovery of a candidate fourth interstellar object, CNEOS 2017-03-09 .
26 September: NASA's DART crashes into the asteroid Dimorphos in a first test of potential planetary defense .
1 October: A new, more detailed simulation of the giant-impact hypothesis suggests that the Moon formed in just hours.
5 October: Ongoing transfer of mitochondrial DNA into DNA in the cell nucleus is reported.
5 October: Researchers outline the large potentials and benefits of marine algae-based aquaculture for the development of a future healthy and sustainable food system .
18 October: Substantial increase of sentiment negativity and decrease of emotional neutrality in headlines across written popular news media since 2000 is reported.
4 November: Artist's impression of the Gaia BH1 system, containing a Sun-like star and the closest known black hole to Earth.
15 November: A 62% decline in sperm counts is found to have occurred since the early 1970s.
23 November: A study reports estimated contemporary prevalence and associations with belief in witchcraft around the world, which (in their data) varied between 9% and 90% between nations and is still a widespread element in worldviews globally. [ 764 ]
13 December: Net energy gain in fusion power is reported at the National Ignition Facility.
14 December: A WHO study comprehensively estimates excess deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021, concluding ~14.8 million excess early deaths occurred [ 829 ]