2025 in review: A cosmic spectacle, the dire wolf’s return and other stories

“Somewhere,” wrote American astronomer and best-selling author Carl Sagan about science, “something incredible is waiting to be known.” 

Through 2025, science broke through new frontiers, looking for and finding the “incredible” in different fields – from space to medicine to artificial intelligence.

From tracking a rare interstellar comet that originated outside our solar system to finding the “strongest evidence” of life on an exoplanet to the staggering growth of artificial intelligence, 2025 was a year of steady breakthroughs.

Here is a collection of a few such milestones, curated specially for TRT readers.

A trip into the universe’s past

In June, scientists unveiled the most detailed map of the universe – truly cosmic in scale and size, going back 13.5 billion years in time and featuring nearly 800,000 galaxies.

The collaborative effort between the James Webb Space Telescope and the Cosmic Evolution Survey collected 255 hours of star-gazing data from “a small region of the sky equivalent to about three times the size of the full moon”.

The map stitches together thousands of photographs to create the colossal map that spans 98 percent of the universe’s timeline.

Scientists selected the COSMOS field because it was subject to minimal interference from stars, gas clouds and the like. This allowed the researchers to observe the field across different wavelengths of light.

“Our goal was to construct this deep field of space on a physical scale that far exceeded anything that had been done before,” said Caitlin Casey, a physicist at the University of California and a member of the COSMOS team.

Just a few days after the map was announced, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in  Chile – which houses the world’s largest digital camera – unveiled a sneak peek into a decade-long astronomical survey that began later this year. 

The results were stunning – including never-before-seen views of a group of galaxies about 55 million light-years away. 

Expect more news – and views – of the universe in the new year.

Humans smart! Machines smarter?  

Way back in the 1950s, a famous mathematician and computer scientist proposed a test to determine whether a machine could think or behave like a human.

Named the Turing Test after its inventor, Alan Turing, the evaluation is meant to distinguish between artificial and human intelligence through text-based interactions.

The researchers compared four Large Language Models (LLMs) against humans to determine whether individuals having a five-minute conversation with either a human or an LLM could distinguish between the two.

Since the interactions are only via writing, the adjudicating individuals don’t know whether they are interacting with a human or a machine.

 “When prompted to adopt a humanlike persona, GPT-4.5 was judged to be the human 73 percent of the time: significantly more often than interrogators selected the real human participant,” researchers Cameron Jones and Benjamin Bergen from the University of California, San Diego, said.

This is the first known instance when “any artificial system passes a standard three-party Turing test”.

Another AI model, LLaMa-3.1-405B, was found to be the human 56 percent of the time, while the other two models, ELIZA and GPT-4o, were only 23 percent and 21 percent of the time respectively.

The result, experts say, throws up profound questions for humanity – both ethical and existential amid fears of AI making humans redundant in many sectors.

Jones and Bergen do have a warning. "Models with this ability to robustly deceive and masquerade as people could be used for social engineering or to spread misinformation.” 

Is the world ready for such a smart AI? We will know soon.

Back from extinction

This is the stuff of Hollywood sci-fi – the kind that drives the superhit Jurassic Park franchise.

Except, it is real, and instead of gigantic dinosaurs as the protagonist, it is the story of the much smaller dire wolf.

The apex predator of the Pleistocene epoch, dire wolves used to roam a broad geographical area from modern-day Venezuela to Canada before they went extinct about 13,000 years ago.

Scientists have now revived the predator through genetic engineering – a breakthrough that has raised hopes for other extinct or endangered species and yet caused ethical and moral concerns. 

For Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based startup which also aspires to resurrect the extinct woolly mammoth, it’s just science.  

“We took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies," Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, said in April, soon after introducing Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi to the world. 

The pups are, however, not 100 percent dire wolf. Scientists edited the DNA of grey wolf cells, making 20 changes to 14 different genes for coat colour, body size and skull shape. 

The company now plans to 'de-extinct' the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo and the woolly mammoth. 

Well, if everything goes according to plan, it's the phrase "dead as a dodo" that might become extinct soon. 

Contact lenses that ‘see’ in the dark

What would it be like to see in the dark? It is a question humans have asked for a long time.

Scientists might have just found the answer. And it’s not a better version of the night-vision goggles.

Researchers have come up with specially designed contact lenses infused with nanoparticles that can detect near-infrared radiation, allowing humans to see in the dark, or even with their eyes closed.

The lenses, able to convert a near-infrared wavelength into RGB (red/green/blue) light that the human eye can see, act like embedded night-vision goggles without the weight or the need for additional power.

An expert quoted by the New Scientist, Peter Rentzepis of Texas A&M University, said that the contact lenses “would provide military personnel with discreet, hands-free night-vision capabilities that overcome the limitations of bulky night-vision [goggles or scopes]”. 

The new contact lenses don’t provide detailed night vision yet because they can only pick up “high-intensity, narrowband LED” light sources, as opposed to lower levels of infrared light from their surroundings.

Rentzepis said while the contact lenses offer “safer and more practical approach for human applications”, as opposed to tests conducted on mice, they must still be used with caution. 

He warned against possible heat exposure from the light-conversion process and possible leakage of nanoparticles used in the contacts into the eye.

Another expert, Mikhail Kats at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, praised the audacity of the research, but pointed out that “using just the contact lens, you wouldn’t be able to read a book in the infrared, or navigate down a dark road.”

A wearable patch to combat substance abuse 

Struggling to kick the addiction? There might be hope for you yet.

Researchers at Mass General Brigham and Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, have collaborated on an experiment that aims to help people with substance use disorders. 

Half the participants in the experiment who wore a smart patch – a non-drug device – were able to deal with the stress of abstinence. 

The findings of the eight-week study titled ‘Heart rate variability biofeedback for substance use disorder’ showed that  64 percent of the participants were “less likely to use substances” when wearing the Lief HRVB Smart Patch.

The study found that individuals in the first year of abstinence were able to manage cravings while wearing equipment that functioned as a heart rate variability biofeedback device.

For people in the early stages of recovery, the main challenge is resisting the cravings and stress. Stress triggers more cravings, and the struggle to resist those urges can create even more stress. Together, cravings and stress can lead to relapse.

All participants were asked to practice scheduled special breathing exercises for at least 10 minutes a day, and for at least five minutes when prompted by the biofeedback device.

“The latest HRV biofeedback devices can detect when people are stressed or experiencing cravings, and, using AI, prompt them to do a brief burst of biofeedback,” said David Eddie, a Harvard-Mass General psychologist at the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

“This allows people to get out in front of risk.”

The authors said that while further research is needed, the study suggests biofeedback may help disrupt “the cycle of craving and substance use”.

Honourable mentions

Scientists have developed a test that could help save lives through early detection of pancreatic cancer – till now often diagnosed in an advanced stage and has a high mortality rate. 

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to detect earthquakes – even tiny ones – raising hopes that the findings may assist in developing early-warning systems.

And a breakthrough study has found that some types of diabetes drugs can prevent heart ailments, lowering the risk of hospitalisation or death.