The Best and Worst in a Tumultuous Year for Science

In March, astrophysicists announced theyd detected the telltale signature of gravitational waves, ripples in space and time created almost immediately after the Big Bang. This would've confirmed cosmic inflation, the theory that the universe expanded extremely rapidly in the first moments of existence. But, follow-up analysis suggests the signal could have come from dust. More analysis is needed, but "the discovery of the century" is in doubt. BICEP2 Collaboration

In type 1 diabetes, the immune system destroys pancreatic cells that make insulin, a hormone that prompts cells to absorb glucose from the blood. In the more common type 2 diabetes, these "beta cells" underperform. After decades of frustration, scientists finally succeeded this year in creating human beta cells from embryonic stem cells, and used them to ameliorate diabetes in mice. Human trials are still a few years off. Douglas Melton / Harvard

Late in 2013, a two-year-old boy in a small Guinean village fell sick from Ebola. Less than a year later, thousands of west Africans were dead. The outbreak's lessons are ongoing: the irrationality of westerners fearing contagion, the dangers of relying on pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments for rare but potentially devastating diseases, the importance of local public health systems to global well-being. Sipp Spaingroup/Flickr

Late in 2013, a two-year-old boy in a small Guinean village fell sick from Ebola. Less than a year later, thousands of west Africans were dead. The outbreak's lessons are ongoing: the irrationality of westerners fearing contagion, the dangers of relying on pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments for rare but potentially devastating diseases, the importance of local public health systems to global well-being.

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The Best and Worst in a Tumultuous Year for Science