Don't count on the weather

Breakthroughs and mayhem - those are the main choices on offer when it comes to predicting what 1998 holds on the science front. The boffins can deliver the best of news when some new cure has been discovered, but also the worst when asked to give the reasons why something dreadful has occurred.

So 1998 - as with every year since history was invented - is going to offer the good science news and the bad. What can't be predicted is which you are going to hear first.

The inescapable food scares

Expect to be frightened out of your wits during 1998 by continuing reports that the meal you just finished might kill you before the year is out. The prime suspects for the evil deed will either be a "new" bacteria - not really new but emerging because of new food handling or processing methods - or BSE/scrapie. The intensive research activity surrounding BSE is giving scientists a lot of fresh information, but also highlighting potential new areas of risk. Becoming a vegetarian might keep you clear of meat-borne diseases, but then there is always new data coming out about pesticide and nitrate residues.

Don't count on the weather

Bet money on the weather becoming more unpredictable as the year progresses. There are now few hold-outs against the reality that our climate is changing, drifting away from what we perceive as "normal", and with this will come more floods, warmer weather, more wind and more rain.

Of course, climate change isn't really very new - the earth's weather follows its own complex, chaotic cycles that remain beyond our ken, alternatively dishing up ice ages and melting ice caps. What is different this time is that humanity is having an effect, changing the mix of gases overhead by burning fuels that belch out carbon dioxide.

Count on El Nino

No prizes for predicting the arrival of the massive El Nino effect in the Pacific Ocean - its appearance was flagged months ago using data returned from a string of ocean buoys and satellites. El Nino is one of those aforementioned periodic weather cycles which alters the way energy is exchanged between air and sea.

It brings a rise in temperatures over vast areas of the Pacific and knock-on changes in weather right around the globe. While scientists now know how to spot an advancing El Nino, knowing exactly where weather will change and how is a less exact science. Predictions are for drought in Australia, more rain over parts of the US and a choice of one or the other depending on where you live in South America. Ireland might just escape - we think.

Mars on the horizon

Mars will soon become as familiar as the suburbs for a city dweller, given all the attention it will get during the coming year. The Mars Pathfinder satellite touched down on the red planet earlier this year, with its Sojourner "dune buggy" giving us a nose-tothe-window view of the Martian surface. The fun is only just beginning, however, as NASA, ESA and the Russians gear up for multiple launches to our near neighbour in the coming years.

Whole lot of shaking going on

Will this be the year of the big one in California? Who knows, but the seismologists and earthquake specialists there are sure trying to find out, as are colleagues working around the world whereever the earth's great crustal plates crunch and grind together. Most earthquakes are actually no big deal - hundreds take place every day, with the odd one causing a stir, even here where they are as rare as snakes.

The specialists get nervous, however, when a known fault line - the places where the plates slide against one another - hasn't moved for a time. The plates move relentlessly but their contact points only "give" from time to time. The longer the wait, the bigger the bump and the more energy released when they do finally move and move they must.

Keeping blood in circulation

Blood supplies have become a major source of worry as we learn more about disease transmission and as researchers try to deal with new illnesses, such as HIV, new variant CJD and BSE. And despite the suffering and sadness already caused in Ireland when disease was transmitted through blood products, certainly more scares - but hopefully not infections - can be by expected.

Doubts also remain about the risks of leaving white blood cells in whole blood transfusions, given recent research that showed that scrapie carried by white cells could cause infection in animal models.

The human blueprint

Without a doubt there will be further dramatic discoveries in the area of genetics. Researchers around the world are studying the chemical building blocks of life and the genes and chromosomes that make things happen inside the body. Much of the work is directed towards identifying gene abnormalities associated with disease, the hope being that the DNA error could be corrected and the disease cured.

Ireland has its participants in this exciting work and several discoveries have achieved a world status in areas such as understanding a form of progressive blindness. With this work comes related studies of the activities of specific genes. If researchers can understand what a normal gene does, then pharmaceutical substances might be developed that can replace what a faulty gene does not produce. Engineering the future

Human DNA studies are matched by similar work in plants and animals but many have reservations about the "genetic engineering" that follows. Dolly the cloned sheep caused a world sensation when she made her appearance, and more of the same is likely.

Dolly's creators continue their own work but teams elsewhere are also using advanced genetic manipulation techniques on other species. It is also safe to assume that the war between those engineering new plants and those opposed to the use of this technology will continue apace. There is little meeting of the minds on this issue as one group attempts to commercialise their discoveries and the other warns that there could be risks with this new technology.