1999 in science

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The year 1999 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Aeronautics

February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in their balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
March 3–20 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones successfully complete a non-stop circumnavigation of the world in a hot air balloon.

January 31 – A total penumbral lunar eclipse
February 7 – Stardust is launched on a mission to collect samples of a comet coma, and return them to Earth.
February 16 – Annular solar eclipse, visible from Australia.
July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
July 28 – Partial lunar eclipse, visible from Australia, eastern Asia, and western North America.
July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
August 11 – Total solar eclipse, visible from Europe, across the Middle East, and ending in India.
December 16 – The Beethoven Burst (GRB 991216) is one of the most powerful detected Gamma-ray bursts.
NASA loses two Mars probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander.
The Subaru 8.3 m and Gemini North 8.1 m reflecting telescopes open at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii.
The Cetus Dwarf galaxy is discovered.

November 1 – Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds comes into force.
The bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis is discovered off the coast of Namibia. At 0.3mm in diameter, it is largest bacteria yet^[update] discovered.

Elements 118 and 116 are claimed to be made for the first time. Later retracted when results could not be replicated.

March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
June – RFC 2616 defines HTTP/1.1, the version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol in common use.
September 21 – David Bowie's Hours becomes the first complete music album by a major artist available to download over the Internet in advance of the physical release.^[1]
First working 3-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at IBM's Almaden Research Center. First execution of Grover's algorithm.

January 25 – A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.
August 17 – A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.

Huda Zoghbi demonstrates that Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2.^[3]

The first BlackBerry is released, using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network.

February 21 – Gertrude B. Elion (b. 1918), American pharmacologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
February 25 – Glenn T. Seaborg (b. 1912), American physical chemist, Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
April 28 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow (b. 1921), American physicist, Nobel laureate in Physicist.
May 8 – Edward Abraham (b. 1913), English biochemist.
May 26 – Waldo Semon (b. 1898), American inventor.
July 8 – Pete Conrad (b. 1930), American astronaut.
November 11 – Vivian Fuchs (b. 1908), English geologist and explorer.

^ Cummings, Sue (1999-09-22). "The Flux in Pop Music Has a Distinctly Download Beat to It". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
^ Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8.
^ Amir, Ruthie E.; Van den Veyver, Ignatia; Wan, Mimi; Tran, Charles; Francke, Uta; Zoghbi, Huda Y. (1999). "Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in X-linked MECP2, encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2" (PDF). Nature Genetics. 23 (2): 185–8. doi:10.1038/13810. PMID 10508514. Retrieved 2015-02-16.