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Asked by hazeleystudent to Andrew, Ben, Beth, Heather, Louisa on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
Question: What, in your opinion, has been the greatest Scientific invention or development over the past 25 years?
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Louisa Chard answered on 13 Jun 2010:
During the last 25 years, science has made huge advances in all fields, so answering this was hard as there are so many to choose from. However, in my opinion the INTERNET has probably been the most significant advance. It was invented in 1990 by a british computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who wanted to create a ‘pool of human knowledge’ that was freely available to anyone. We all use the internet everyday and it has become vital to learning and sharing ideas. It gives me immediate access to research from all over the world, which speeds up the development of new research projects and anytime I get stuck on experiments the chances are, someone else in the world has had the same problems I can quickly and easily find out what they tried to correct the problem.
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Andrew McKinley answered on 13 Jun 2010:
That is a really good question, and also a difficult one to answer! So much has happened it is very difficult to pin down one particular development. I really want to say something that has affected *everyone*, but again that is really difficult to say – Mobile phones have been around since the early 1980s, computers even earlier than that – everything since has been an enhancement on an existing design, but no overall breakthrough that affects us all. It is of course easier to assess the impact of an invention long after its creation, which probably makes the 25year timeframe quite difficult to judge!
In my opinion, I think that the most amazing developments have been in the field of biotechnology; from genetic modification to cloning and stem cell research. These are techniques which I think will become increasingly important in the future as we search for cures to disease and attempt to grow replacement organs. The ethics of such science will be debated for many years, but I think that this field will show some of the most important developments in the history of science.
Without a doubt though, the most important technological invention has to be the “hyper-text transfer protocol”, or HTTP – you may recognise it as the beginning of every web address – “http://www.bbc.co.uk”. It was this invention by Tim Berners Lee that made the internet accessible to all. Before this, finding information through your computer was limited to a few specialist people who knew how to program their computers. This technology has totally changed our way of life, and has resulted in an accelleration of the rate of progress of Science, as it is now much to see what science has been performed around the world and it makes it easy for scientists to work together, as well as making it easy for everyone to stay in touch!
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Heather McKee answered on 13 Jun 2010:
It depends on which way you look at it:
If you’re a geneticist it could be the discovery of gene therapy; with its many potentially groundbreaking uses for example in the prevention and potential cure of some cancers, treatment of genetic diseases such as Parkinson’s and most recently the creation of an artificial insulin like substance that can be used to help treat diabetesIf you’re an ecologist the discovery of the photovoltaic module or solar panel which helps generate solar energy or power which has numerous applications from lighting up our houses to powering mobile phones
If you’re a physicist or an astronomist it could be the launch of virgin galactic in order to further promote space tourism
However if you’re a woman it could be the invention of ceramic plates for hair straighteners giving us all lovely shiny straight hair!
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Ben Still answered on 14 Jun 2010:
The World Wide Web. Undoubtedly! What has had a bigger impact on our lives that the WWW? Without it there would be no Facebook, no Twitter and no I’m a Scientist.
The World Wide Web was invented for particle physicists (like me) but is now used by over 1.8 billion people worldwide(Ref 1). Tim Berners-Lee (Ref 2) is the man who first came up with the idea. He was a British scientist working at the CERN (Ref 3), the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, which is now home to the Large Hadron Collider (Ref 4).
I have just noticed that other agree with me!
Ref 1: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Ref 2: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
Ref 3: http://www.cern.ch/
Ref 4: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html -
Beth Dyson answered on 14 Jun 2010:
I agree that the Internet has provided massive advancements for all areas of science, making it easier to share information, ideas and technology. The implications of the Internet have been huge, an incredible tool to bring people and thoughts together. It is also an example of technology that has been used by everyone, at least in the developed world, and one we take for granted, even though it was invented only twenty years ago. Around 33% of the worlds population will use the internet daily within the next ten years!
For me though, the most important scientific discovery of the last twenty five years have been the advances in molecular biology and DNA manipulation, particularly the widespread sequencing of DNA.
The Human Genome project was completed this century and the sequencing of lots of other organisms (including the plant I work on) means that researchers can look at genes of inetrest more easily. For me, access to the sequenced genome of Arabidopsis means I can try to figure out exactly what is going on when plants are stressed. It also means we now know that humans share around 61% of their DNA with a banana, which explains a lot!
Comments
Andrew commented on :
What’s amazing about the internet is that Tim Berners-Lee and CERN gave it to mankind for free! We could try to imagine what would have happened if they had tried to charge us for it, but then something else would have become the means by which we browse the internet!