Stem Cells

• Stem cells have the potential to develop and grow into any part of the human body. Specialized embryonic stem cells were first isolated from mice in 1981. In 1998, scientists discovered how to derive stem cells from human embryos. Pure lines of the cells could be grown in the laboratory and genetically programmed to differentiate into any of the 220 different kinds of human cells. Scientists discovered how to generate stem cells from human skin in 2007.
  
  

Exoplanets

• Exoplanets are rocky or gaseous spherical worlds that exist outside the solar system. The extra-solar planets are spotted by the Kepler space telescope launched from Cape Canaveral in 2009. As of March 29, 2011 the Kepler has discovered 1,235 exoplanetary candidates. The possible planets are seen as tiny dark silhouettes outlined against their suns. Many stars have multiple exoplanets, indicating planetary solar systems.
  
  

Comets

• A NASA project spanning seven years and three-billion miles successfully landed a container of pristine comet particles and some interstellar dust in the Arizona desert on January 15, 2006. The first material of its kind ever collected allowed scientists to make many new discoveries about the most primitive material in the 4.56 billion year old solar system. Scientists discovered minerals that had formed at high temperatures, yet were collected in one of the coldest parts of the solar system.
  
  

Omo Man

• Two skulls named Omo I and Omo II were found by paleontologist Richard Leaky in 1967 near Ethopia's Omo river. In 2005, using the latest dating technology, scientists discovered that the skulls are 195,000 years old. They are 65,000 years older than the previous known Homo sapien fossil called Herto Man. This milestone paleoanthropological discovery lends evidential support to the "Out of Africa" theory of the origins of modern humans.