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IT MAKES for an exciting year when years of waiting come to an end, a wonder
drug opens up a new field of medicine and nature makes its awesome presence
felt.

Viagra restored the sex lives of thousands of men. It might also work for
women. And with more drugs in the pipeline, this sexual revolution will run and
run.

In Hawaii, biologists helped end Dolly’s splendid isolation by cloning scores
of mice. The critics who doubted whether the superstar sheep was for real have
now been silenced. And now we’re contemplating the cloning of human spare parts
for transplant surgery.

NASA’s long wait was also rewarded, with the launch of the first two
components of the International Space Station. What was conceived as an
all-American dream is now a truly international endeavour, so naturally it’s
running 10 years late and billions over budget. It is still the most ambitious
construction project ever attempted—but it could be thwarted by launch
failures and Russia’s economic woes.

Concerns about the space programme were forgotten in March, however, when we
were told that the world might end in 2028, devastated by a killer asteroid. The
doomsters turned out to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean we’ve nothing to worry
about. In a year of climatic chaos, the planet was battered by hurricanes,
mudslides and floods. And as the world’s governments struggle to come to grips
with global warming, climatologists’ predictions are becoming ever more
catastrophic.

If all that’s too worrying, it may be some comfort to learn that, on the
cosmic scale at least, the future seems secure. By observing distant supernovae,
a Californian team concluded that the Universe will expand for ever.

Not to be outdone, particle physicists finally confirmed that at least some
of the ghostly particles known as neutrinos have mass. And quantum physicists
also passed a major milestone by making a rudimentary quantum computer.

So before 1998 is consigned to the history books, let New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ
remind you of the science and technology news that made the year, as it happened. . .