American Scientist

Nearly half of all Americans will make a New Year’s resolution this January. I usually make two pledges: one personal, the other professional. Although some of us will fall short of our original goals, others will succeed spectacularly. And so we band together with hope and good intentions for a fruitful year.

The tradition of making a New Year’s resolution is not new, nor is it limited by culture or creed. The ancient Babylonians began each year by making a promise to their gods that they would return borrowed goods and pay off debts. During the final feast of Christmas week, medieval knights placed their hands on a roasted peacock and reaffirmed their pledge to chivalry. Judaism’s annual Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, remains a moment to seek forgiveness for the previous year’s wrongs. These acts demonstrate the importance of ceremonially recommitting to one’s values, and affirm the decision by millions of people annually to follow suit.

At American Scientist, we take this opportunity to renew our promise to bring you remarkable science. In 2015 we celebrated the mapping of the human epigenome, an achievement that illuminates the mechanisms controlling the activity of our DNA. We were astounded by the discovery of a supermassive black hole 12 billion times as massive as our Sun, and we marveled as the New Horizons spacecraft transmitted images of Pluto from the edge of our planetary system. Today, we ponder what exciting new discoveries will be made, what technological advancements will be achieved, and what societal challenges will be resolved by scientists and engineers in the coming year.

Looking ahead, we can anticipate some 2016 milestones with confidence. Juno, a NASA New Frontiers mission, will arrive at Jupiter on July 4th after a nearly five-year journey. On May 9th, astronomers will track the planet Mercury as it moves directly between Earth and the Sun in a rare transit event that will occur only once more in the next 24 years. And by the end of the year, physicians will confirm that Earth’s human population has reached 7.4 billion.

But for the most part, we can only guess at the scientific surprises in store. Will we finally breach the blood-brain barrier for drug delivery? Will autonomous vehicles surge onto American roads? Will physicists catch a glimpse of dark matter particles? The new year offers an opportunity for scientists and engineers to regroup for another shot at tackling their biggest challenges. As we speculate on the many possibilities for 2016, we’re reminded that scientific achievement requires consistent commitment by researchers to persevere against the odds to meet their objectives.

This issue focuses on the contributions of scientists who have followed through on the goal of making extraordinary contributions. Ainissa Ramirez details the painstaking quest that led to the invention of steel in “Bessemer’s Volcano and the Birth of Steel” ; Daniel Ksepka reports on the work of numerous scientists who have endeavored to understand avian color evolution in “The Penguin’s Palette—More Than Black and White”; and, in “Fire in Microgravity,”  Indrek Wichman and his colleagues describe the 30-year effort to understand the physics of flamelets and how they behave in microgravity environments, as observed in specially made Earth-bound facilities as well as on spacecraft. These examples of scientific perseverance can teach us all something about the importance of focus and grit.

With this in mind in the days and months ahead, I’ll be pulling for you to achieve your New Year’s goals. I hope that achieving mine will make for an exciting year at American Scientist.—Jamie L. Vernon (@JLVernonPhD)