Nature predicts the hot areas of science in 2017.

Viruses are part of the human microbiome.
photo source: Jezper/Alamy Nature, a recent forecast for the world's hotspots of science in 2017.
climate change If U.S. President-elect Donald Trump cancels the country's climate commitments as he promised, China will take the lead in mitigating global climate change.
china's cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions will be rolled out in 2017.
the past three years, global carbon emissions have been balanced, and some scientists even hope to see a decline in carbon emissions by 2017, thanks to economic stagnation and a surge in green technologies.
political legacy 2016 elections will have an impact in 2017.
with Mr. Trump taking office on January 20, researchers will be able to better understand whether his administration will actually cut NASA's climate and earth science programs or revoke permission to study human embryonic stem cells.
March 2017, the UK will begin formal negotiations on the country's exit from the European Union, with potentially huge implications for scientific research.
, first in France and then in Germany, scientists will see if nationalism has an impact on the leadership election.
data, China's Chang'e-5 lunar exploration project will bring lunar samples back to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.
success, 2 kg of moon rock and expected soil will help further study the formation and evolution of the satellite.
September 2017, NASA's Cassini probe will die after 20 years of operation -- it will enter Saturn's inner ring and send back the final data before breaking down in the planet's atmosphere.
the inner world scientists will study the health effects of the human microbiome.
are analyzing the effects of the microbiome on brain development and cancer.
results will also come from the second phase of the U.S. Human Microbiome Program, which focuses on the relationship between the human microbiome and premature birth, inflammatory bowel disease, and type 2 diabetes.
technology competition A U.S. court is likely to dominate the CRISPR Cas9 patent battle between the University of California, Berkeley, and the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
of gene editing technology could make billions of dollars, according to a research firm.
NgAgo, another competing gene-editing system, will depend on follow-up studies because it is difficult to replicate.
physicists hope quantum computers will be able to perform calculations in 2017 that even the best computers can't do today.
Google, D-wave and others are in the middle of a battle for quantum dominance.
they're not the only team with this high goal.
microsoft is currently working on another ambitious alternative technology, known as topological quantum computing.
Darkness Scientists will make their first attempt to photograph the horizons of a black hole in April 2017, when nine radio telescopes around the world will work together as a single, planetary-sized observatory.
telescope will target supermassive black holes in the middle of the Milky Way.
success, these images will help test general relativity and explain the behavior of black holes.
the magic material later in 2017, cheap and thin solar cells will be out of the lab and put into commercial production.
this highly efficient calcium-titanium-based solar cell has been popular since 2009.
but until recently researchers have overcome the main drawbacks of the battery, including instability and toxicity, while reducing production costs.
Blue Ocean, the world's largest marine protected area, will take effect in December 2017, when commercial fishing and mineral extraction will be banned in parts of Antarctica's Ross Sea.
antarctic, a large iceberg will strip the Larsen C ice shelf, which is now at its smallest size since it was discovered in 1893.
in warmer waters, researchers will look at coral bleaching events over the past few years and reveal why coral reefs in some areas suffer relatively little damage.
T-cells fight back against the first complex cancer immunotherapy called CAR-T is ready to go on sale.
and Novarma are competing over who will be approved to use the therapy, which uses genetically engineered T-cells from the patient's immune system to fight cancer.
although toxicity problems have led to patient deaths in trials at some companies, the treatment could be approved in 2017 as a last resort for treating leukemia and lymphoma.
ninth planet the study of the outer solar system may help determine the location of the ninth planet, a hypothetical behemoth that orbits the sun about every 20,000 years.
astronomers had little evidence of its existence until 2016, when a study found that the behavior of some objects in the Kerber Belt suggested that the solar system might actually have the ninth planet.
(Zhao Xixi) China Science Journal (2016-12-27, 2nd edition International) Source: China Science Journal (2016-12-27, 2nd edition International)