Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries Made in 2023 Break New Records

The year 2023 brought a number of groundbreaking discoveries in the realm of science, focusing on understanding the mysteries surrounding our ancestors, Earth and its inhabitants.

Despite how sleep-deprived you might feel, it’s very likely you are getting more rest than the northern elephant seal. During their long hunting journeys at sea, these creatures only take naps of less than 20 minutes and average about two hours of sleep in a day. This ties them with African elephants for the title of the least-sleeping mammal (SN: 4/20/23).

The Yamnaya people, who date back to 3000 B.C., might have been the earliest individuals to mount horses, way before any known depictions of horseback riding (SN: 4/8/23, p. 12). The skeletons of Yamnaya people excavated in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary show signs of being horse riders, such as marks on the femur and pelvic region that could have resulted from sitting on a horse and damage to the vertebral column from falls.

The Altiplano plateau in the Atacama Desert in Chile receives an average of 308 watts of sunlight per square meter, making it the place with the most intense sunlight on Earth (SN: 8/26/23, p. 5). The solar radiation here sometimes surpasses 2,000 watts per square meter, which is comparable to the amount of sunlight expected to hit Venus, which is significantly closer to the Sun compared to Earth.

A supermassive black hole located approximately 13.2 billion light-years from Earth is the most distant and ancient black hole ever seen. The massively sized black hole dates back to when the universe was merely 470 million years old (SN: 12/18/21 & 1/1/22, p. 29). The colossal black hole is estimated to weigh around the same as its host galaxy, bringing researchers to believe it was formed only through the collapse of a gas cloud. This discovery could contribute to understanding how the universe's first generation of gigantic black holes came into existence.

Young snapping shrimp are known to move their claws faster than adults, according to high-speed video footage; their acceleration can reach up to 600 kilometers per second per second (SN: 4/8/23, p. 5). Impressively, the acceleration of a 1-month-old shrimp's claw is akin to the force of a 9mm bullet being fired, making it the highest underwater acceleration for a reusable body part.

Despite the classic tale of the three little pigs, wood has proven to be a sustainable building material for perhaps up to half a million years. Intricately crafted interlocking logs discovered in Zambia are nearly 480,000 years old, making them the oldest wooden structure found (SN: 9/20/23). This structure may be a section of old walkway, seating area or storage space, indicating that early human relatives may have had less nomadic lifestyles than previously believed.

The whale community seemingly has a new heavyweight. An extinct whale fittingly named Perucetus colossus may have weighed up to 340 metric tons, almost double the weight of the heaviest blue whales, an analysis of fossils discovered in Peru suggests (SN: 9/9/23, p. 5). This gigantic mammal reportedly existed in shallow waters around 39 million years ago, but the nature of its diet that sustained its size is still unknown.