"Nature" 2021 Top Ten People Announced The chief designer of China's Mars Exploration was selected

Beijing, December 16 (Reporter Sun Zifa) The world-famous academic journal "Nature" announced its annual top ten people in the early morning of Beijing time on the 16th, and Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of China's Mars exploration mission, and 10 people who affected the scientific events in 2021 were selected.

Nature's Top 10 People of 2021.　Screenshot of the official website of Nature

Nature's 10 2021 list aims to select 10 people who have a place in the year's major science events. Rich Monastersky, editor-in-chief of Nature's feature division, said that from tracking dangerous coronavirus variants to proving the role of climate change in extreme weather to sending probes to Mars, this year's Nature Top Ten people focus on individuals at the center of major scientific events that have had a profound impact on the world.

As last year, many of the stories of nature's top ten figures of 2021 are related to COVID-19: Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform in South Africa, and his team sounded the alarm about Omicron, a variant of the coronavirus that is currently spreading rapidly around the world; Winnie Byanyima, director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, spearheaded criticism of rich countries and pharmaceutical companies for turning a deaf ear to calls for an equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines This has left many low- and middle-income countries unable to protect their citizens; Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the Health Security Agency, has disassembled the agency's scientific reports into easy-to-understand content and posted them on social media to help spread key messages about COVID-19; and Janet Woodcock has led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration through a stormy year, including controversial decisions about the covid-19 vaccine booster and an Alzheimer's drug.

In 2021, wildfires, floods, and heat waves hit many parts of the world, elevating climate change to a major scientific issue, and countries are exploring how to strengthen an international agreement to combat global warming and its effects. In this regard, Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in London, collaborated with other researchers to quickly assess whether human-caused climate change plays a role in triggering specific extreme weather. The Efforts of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, who is currently working in the Philippines, have pushed countries to take substantive steps towards recognizing the importance of indigenous groups in conserving biodiversity and preventing global warming.

In 2021, China will become the second country in the world to let the rover successfully land on Mars, which is also the answer sheet handed over by Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of the China National Space Administration and the Mars exploration mission. In addition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher Timnit Gebru set up a research institute to build on her previous work to study how AI systems can be developed in a more ethical way. Computer scientist Guillaume Cabana has uncovered thousands of fake papers filled with software-generated meaningless text that sounded a wake-up call for the world. AI researcher John Jumper and his colleagues at DeepMind in London have exposed AlphaFold's code— AlphaFold's ability to predict protein structure with astonishing accuracy using AI technology.

Springer Nature told the media that Nature's Top Ten People of the Year is not an award, nor is it one of the top ten people in the world, but the Top Ten People of the Year, selected by Nature's editors, is a record of the year's important scientific progress, events, and some of its key figures and colleagues. The newly announced Nature's Top Ten People of the Year brings together individuals who will influence some of the most important scientific events of 2021.

It is also understood that Springer Nature recently announced the acquisition of Morgan & Claypool's Synthesis Engineering and Computer Science Digital Library, which will strengthen Springer Nature's series of books on artificial intelligence, electrical engineering and computer science.

In addition, Springer Nature and Egyptian government agencies have reached a landmark Conversion Agreement (TA) to advance open research, which will strengthen the implementation of open access (OA) publishing in economies of all sizes around the world. (End)