Science‘s editors clearly foresaw this year’s burgeoning of plant genome sequences, progress on emissions reductions in the run-up to the U.N. conference in Copenhagen, and the continued failure to spot dark matter. Last year’s other predictions will take more time to come to fruition.
Ocean fizz
The inevitable acidification of the ocean by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide garnered more public attention in 2009, but—as anticipated—not much. The expected bad news about generally harmful effects on living things kept coming, and hot spots of particularly rapid acidification turned up, but nothing pushed world attention across a threshold. Climate negotiations in Copenhagen got no boost from outcries over the one sure greenhouse impact.
Science 326:1602. Article (subscription required).
