It has been a year in which technological progress posed existential questions to our species previously reserved for sci-fi, as machine learning was on everyone’s lips, bleeding into geopolitics with the race for AI supremacy.
Meanwhile, a certain pop star (now dating a former world leader) “put the ass in astronaut”, her words, and found herself in orbit. It’s safe to say 2025 was a year like no other.
AI’s Sputnik moment
Chinese tech upstarts DeepSeek flipped the script on US AI dominance in January when they launched their reasoning model R1. It was cheaper, more efficient and faster than ChatGPT, calling into question the huge amount of funding poured into the US tech sector. Global markets acted accordingly. Nvidia, the key player in the US’s AI strategy, lost $600bn in value in a single day. The moment proved far from fatal though; 11 months later the US tech sector is now richer than ever.
Colossal’s mammoth achievement
Colossal Biosciences shocked the world last year when they brought dire wolves back from extinction — sort of: they gave regular wolves certain characteristics of their ancient ancestors through gene editing. This year, the Austin-based company decided to focus on the woolly mammoth. In March, they created long fur, “woolly mice” through the same gene editing process, something they want to try on elephant DNA next.
Groundbreaking fertility treatment
September saw a landmark achievement from researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University that experts predict will transform fertility treatments forever. In a world first, scientists created functioning human eggs from reprogrammed skin cells capable of being fertilised with sperm. The approach could offer new options for people unable to produce eggs.
Perry in space
It was a bit blink and you’ll miss it, but Katy Perry’s 11-minute journey to the final frontier in April still counts. The pop star was part of the first all-female space mission since 1963, courtesy of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin. Acting as a trial run for Blue Origin’s commercial space travel service, NS-31, Perry was in esteemed company, with former Nasa space engineer Aisha Bowe among the crew. Upon landing back on Earth, Perry fell to her knees and kissed the Texan soil.
Pig lung transplant
In October, Chinese surgeons carried out the world’s first pig-to-human lung transplant, marking a cautious step forward for xenotransplantation. The operation involved replacing the lung of a 39-year-old brain-dead man with one from a genetically engineered pig. The organ survived for nine days before the body’s immune system started attacking it. Even standard lung transplants between humans often fail quickly, so this gives hope for more animal-human organ transplants.
Goodbye Dr Goodall
This year saw the passing of beloved British primatologist Dr Jane Goodall aged 91. Goodall was the world’s most celebrated chimpanzee expert who over a 65-year career revealed their rich social lives and tool use, dismantling notions that human beings are entirely unique. Her death prompted an outpouring of tributes from the world of science and beyond, with Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio calling her “a true hero for the planet, an inspiration for millions, and a dear friend”.
CRISPR breakthrough
Perhaps the biggest advances in medicine this year were made through CRISPR technology — a type of targeted gene therapy that can alter the DNA of living beings. In May, scientists at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia performed a world first when they cured a baby of a disease that previously could only be treated by a liver transplant later in life. Experts hailed the breakthrough as “totally extraordinary”, with the disease killing half of its sufferers in infancy.
Cyborg manifesting
In many ways, 2025 has been a year of human optimisation, with Elon Musk’s brain chip venture Neuralink rising to prominence. One of the biggest breakthroughs came from a European study though, which demonstrated the effectiveness of a tiny microchip to fight the effects of an untreatable eye condition called age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The ultra-thin chip was inserted into the back of the eye and connected to a pair of glasses containing a video camera. The results were astonishing, allowing sufferers of AMD to read.
No more Nobel?
The prestigious Scandinavian awards delivered success for the Brits once again. Professor Richard Robson, right, won with his work on a “magic” material that acts in a similar manner to Hermione’s bag in Harry Potter. In the books, the young witch’s clutch looks normal from the outside, but is bottomless inside. Professor Robson discovered that, through connecting carbon based atoms with metal atoms, you could create metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with incredibly large internal surface area.
Rumble in the jungle
The yearly global climate conference has rarely been as controversial and dramatic as 2025’s Cop30 in Brazil. Taking place on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, senior US officials were a notable omission from proceedings. In the end, an agreement of sorts was cobbled together, including a confirmation of the need to come off fossil fuels, a push to help developing countries to adapt to greener measures and a roadmap to counter deforestation. For many, it left a lot to be desired.
