For many, replacing 2020 with 2021 on calendars, to-do lists, and personal checks (and in our minds) comes with a sigh of relief—however short-lived. But, despite the year's massive (and necessary) influx of research and stories on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, the majority of our most-read stories from 2020 did not focus on the pandemic; instead, they celebrated a Nobel Laureate's autobiography, life's possible Frankenstein-like chemical beginnings, and advances in gene-editing technology that could solve previously unsolvable mutations, like one responsible for deafness.
Maybe our readers took refuge in scientific advancement or found hope in extraordinary discoveries and achievements while the world's scientific machine worked like never before to craft solutions to an unprecedented problem. Or, maybe, the feats simply stand on their own—proof that even a disruption as large and costly as a pandemic can't stop that machine from churning. Here's a look back on our most-read stories, so you can decide for yourself:
Nobel laureate Martin Karplus publishes his autobiography
Promise to restore hearing
A treasured colleague
Harvard honors Professor Roy Gordon's legacy with a new endowed title
Brian Liau earns award for novel approach to cancer research
Liau is one of 12 early career researchers honored for fighting cancer through innovation
Mask decontamination methods: Strengths, weaknesses, gaps
Life’s Frankenstein beginnings
Researchers discover molecule’s unusual cell-killing mechanism
Where the BEs are
New molecular tool precisely edits mitochondrial DNA
Crossing the science-community divide
