Discoveries help reveal future

It has been a big year for scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, but three speak to me about our growing understanding of where the human race has come from and where we are going. Last month, archaeologists revealed images of the oldest figurative art so far discovered anywhere – red ochre drawings of a stocky animal and hand tracings scrawled on the wall of a cave in the jungles of Borneo.

The paintings have been dated to more than 40,000 years ago. Older art made by humans has been recovered, but it is mainly abstract shapes and lines. These sketches point to humans trying to make sense of the world and themselves, a pivotal development in our evolution. Our ancestors were making figurative art at opposite ends of the Earth about the same time. The scientists used a relatively new radiometric dating method to accurately gauge the age of minerals in flowstones that had formed over some of the sketches.

In September, two American paraplegics, who had lost motion in their legs after car crashes, appeared standing and walking. They had received surgically implanted nerve stimulation devices, which in conjunction with intensive therapy, allowed them to regain extensive use of their legs.

It is early days, but it shows that carefully implanted electrodes can bridge damaged sections of the spinal cord to connect signals from the brain to peripheral nerves that control muscle function. It could have huge implications.

Nasa had a stellar year, successfully delivering the Insight Lander to Mars, fixing the optics of the Hubble Space Telescope and sending the OSIRISREx probe to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

But the launch of the Parker probe impressed me the most. On a six-and-a-half year voyage, Parker will virtually kiss the sun, orbiting our neighbourhood star at a distance of about

6.9 million kilometres, withstanding temperatures of 1400 degrees Celsius.

If it can handle the heat, Parker promises to deliver new insights about the fusion reactor that powers our solar system and the crazy weather it creates in the process.

On a sixand-a-half year voyage, Parker will virtually kiss the sun.