page_title: 2014 in science
section_title: March
hierarchical_section_title: 2014 in science / Events, discoveries and inventions / March
caption_attribution_description: English: Ocean Inside Saturn's Moon Enceladus http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA18071 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-103 This diagram illustrates the possible interior of Saturn's moon Enceladus based on a gravity investigation by NASA's Cassini spacecraft and NASA's Deep Space Network, reported in April 2014. The gravity measurements suggest an ice outer shell and a low density, rocky core with a regional water ocean sandwiched in between at high southern latitudes. Views from Cassini's imaging science subsystem were used to depict the surface geology of Enceladus and the plume of water jets gushing from fractures near the moon's south pole. Enceladus is 313 miles (504 kilometers) in diameter. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.
context_page_description: A number of significant scientific events occurred in 2014, including the first robotic landing on a comet and the first complete stem-cell-assisted recovery from paraplegia. The year also saw a significant expansion in the worldwide use and sophistication of technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles and wearable electronics.
  The United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming and Crystallography.
context_section_description: 3 March – Scientists announce the discovery of pithovirus, the largest giant virus yet known, revived from a 30,000-year-old sample of frozen tundra.
  4 March – A new study concludes that nearly one-fifth of the 720 UNESCO World Heritage Sites will be affected by rising sea levels this century if global temperatures rise by 3 °C.
  5 March – NASA scientists report that asteroid 2014 DX110, a near-Earth asteroid roughly 20–40 m (66–131 ft) in diameter, passed less than 1 lunar distance from Earth.
  6 March
  NASA reports disintegration of asteroid P/2013 R3 observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (images).
  The discovery of a new living coral reef with an area of 28 km² in the territorial waters of Iraq is announced in Scientific Reports.
  7 March – NASA reports that the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), after an exhaustive survey, has not been able to uncover any evidence of "Planet X", a hypothesized planet within the Solar System.
  9 March – Researchers from the University of East Anglia discover four new ozone-depleting gases (3 CFCs and one HCFC). Two of the gases are still accumulating in the atmosphere, but their origins remain unknown.
  10 March - Stanford bioengineer develops a 50-cent paper microscope capable of a magnification of up to 2000 times.
  12 March
  The Very Large Telescope discovers the largest known yellow star, HR 5171A, which is 1,300 times the diameter of our Sun. It has a companion star that orbits so close, the two stars are almost merged.
  The discovery of a ringwoodite sample provides strong evidence of water in huge volumes in the Earth's mantle at 400 to 700 km (250 to 430 mi) below the surface.
  Iranian scientists at Gilan University created self-cleaning coatings for the textile factories and in construction verified surfaces.
  13 March – Researchers in Siberia state that they have access to good quality DNA that offers a "high chance" of cloning the woolly mammoth.
  17 March
  By demonstrating rippling patterns (the possible effect of gravitational waves) in the cosmic microwave background, astronomers may have uncovered a major piece of evidence to support inflation and the Big Bang theory of the universe. However, on 19 June 2014, lowered confidence in confirming the findings was reported; and on 19 September 2014, even more lowered confidence.
  A large, previously stable part of Greenland has been found to be melting rapidly, suggesting that future sea level estimates will have to be revised upwards.
  Specimens of the moss Chorisodontium aciphyllum are revived after 1500 years frozen.
  19 March – A new record efficiency of 17 percent for thin-film solar is achieved.
  20 March – A new method to obtain human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from a single drop of finger-pricked blood is achieved.
  23 March – Scientists demonstrate the distribution of three entangled photons at three different locations, several hundreds of metres apart. This could pave the way to multi-party quantum communication.
  24 March
  Researchers create a biodegradeable battery that could be used for medical implants inside the body.
  Rates of blindness and partial sight have plummeted in the developed world over the last 20 years, according to new research.
  25 March – Paleontologists assemble giant turtle bone from fossil discoveries made 160 years apart. Atlantochelys mortoni, found in Cretaceous sediments dating back 75 million years, was possibly the largest turtle that ever lived.
  26 March
  Astronomers report the discovery of a new minor planet, named 2012 VP113, beyond the planet Neptune in the Solar System.
  Astronomers report the discovery of the first ring system around an asteroid (10199 Chariklo).
  27 March
  The first synthetic chromosome is created for integration into a yeast cell.
  A study finds that Cuvier's beaked whale is capable of diving to a depth of 3.2 km and staying under water for 137 minutes, both records for a mammal.
  30 March – The first evidence that CRISPR can reverse disease symptoms in living animals has been demonstrated. Using this new gene-editing technique, MIT researchers cured mice of a rare l
caption: Evidence of an underground ocean of liquid water on Enceladus, moon of planet Saturn, reported (3 April 2014; artist image).[137][138]
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