New Year. New Science.

[AVGWarhawk]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ar-new-science

Landmark results from an early-stage clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) should appear this year.

The American Psychiatric Association will publish the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May, the first major update in 19 years to the standard reference guide for diagnosing mental illnesses. It will lead to controversial changes in clinical and research protocols, including restructured diagnoses for autism and major depression, although as a ‘living document’ the DSM-5 will see further revisions.

the Global Change Research Program’s second assessment will detail the national impacts of climate change.

Data will start flowing from the first completed segments of a giant under-water surveillance network, the U.S. Ocean Observatories Initiative, which will cost $386 million to build and will be completed by March 2015. It will monitor every-thing from undersea earthquakes and the effects of climate change on ocean circulation, to shifting ecosystems and ocean chemistry—all the way from the air to the seabed at seven sites around the globe. Meanwhile, British, American and Russian teams will be hoping to find out what kind of life, if any, exists in three deep, subglacial Antarctic lakes.

Exciting stuff. The list goes on.

[Herr-Berbunch]

All good stuff, some exciting, some just plain needed, and there is still lots more that will come to the fore in 2013.

[AVGWarhawk]

I'm very interested in the underwater network. As much as we like to think space is the final frontier I'm inclined to believe the oceans depths have much to be discovered.

[mookiemookie]

It's amazing to see how fast science makes progress. Think about it...there probably wasn't a lot of change in the way that people did things or the things that people knew in say, year 500 to year 501. Probably not a whole lot of change from 500 to 600 even. But today, the world is changing faster than ever. It's an exciting time to be alive.

[AVGWarhawk]

Do you think the internet is a driving force in the speed of advancement in the sciences? Let's face it, I can share information with you in a matter of seconds.

[Penguin]

Well, I wouldn't think in categories like good or bad when it comes to scientific research. As everthing is interconnected, science and philosophy should not be seen as totally seperate entities. I wish scientists would more often look over the edge and consider morale too, everyone who read Dürrenmatt's The Physicists knows what I mean. However science mostly looks for a breakthough and new discoveries in their field, the driving force behind it is not necessarily the common good.

That being said, I am very critical when it comes to patenting genes. Just for this I wish god would exist and sue the crap out of everyone who would attempt to do so.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Do you think the internet is a driving force in the speed of advancement in the sciences? Let's face it, I can share information with you in a matter of seconds.

Of course does the net speed up things, it was one of the driving forces behind its developement.
The so called "information problem" was already phrased when we were confrontated with exponentially growing knowledge, in the beginning of the 19th century. It was impossible to keep up with the knowledge, this is where the scientific specialization began. A big downer was that the scientific exchange was pretty difficult, the exchange of discoveries not as much as the exchange of research. For a scientist it was for instance nearly impossible to find out if others are already working on a problem - or already found a solution. Good examples for many working simultaneously on the same stuff with similar results would be the telephone or the automobile. If all those teams which worked on that would have had the possibility to exchange information, it would have certainly speeded things up.
So when one of the early US computer pioneers, Vannevar Bush, wrote his ground-breaking essay "As Me may think" in 1945 the prob, which he called the "library problem" was still existing. What made the essay so great is not only the content, but also the inspiration it gave to others. When you compare the developement of the web, with building a house, it led to the foundation.

A pretty good essay about it can be read here . On page 3 there is some good info about the library problem. Though I can highly recommend to read Bush's essay too, as he was a radio operator in the pacific when he wrote the stuff, there are also some references to science and war/the military.
You can see an animation of the device that Bush though about to access and exchange information, called the Memex, .