What is the most important discovery of all time?

Here are my two suggestions for the most important discovery of all time:

1. The discovery of fire. This refers to the first controlled use of fire that was said to be discovered in the Early Stone Age when one extremely smart (or extremely lucky) caveman conquered the fire and shared this gift with members of his tribe. Conquering fire provided our ancestors with light and heat, and enabled them to cook plants and animals. Fire also kept away predators and helped the procreation of our ancestors.

2. Language. The language acted as the means of transmitting gathered knowledge from one generation to other. Language is thought to have originated when early hominids first started cooperating and working together. This enabled science to constantly grow and develop by sharing 

There have been plenty of other important discoveries throughout the history of human race but these two have prominent place because they were the ones that opened the door of knowledge to humans and helped us become the most superior creatures in this planet.

We are talking here about the main building foundations of our existence because there is a good possibility that we would have gone extinct without these two vital discoveries.

No matter what science discovers in years to come, even if the science comes up with the secret of eternal life and turns us into divine creatures, fire and language will forever remain the origin of our all knowledge.

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What makes science interesting?

Some people find science boring but science is anything but boring. You know why? It is because science has so many different aspects and so many different fields that you simply have to find something that interests you and stimulates your hunger for knowledge.

Science is always moving forward and with each new day we have the chance to witness new fascinating discoveries that sometimes seem to be out of this world. The constant scientific progress is what drives our society and our civilization forward.

Who would have imagined few centuries years ago that one day humans could fly into the space and walk on the surface of the Moon?

Science makes fantasy come true. Only science is able to transform our imagination into reality.

Science is not only the result of our imagination, it is really the combination of imagination and hard work. The majority of scientific discoveries were the result of countless previous experiments where scientists had to learn from past mistakes in order to move forward.

Some scientific discoveries were also the result of pure luck where scientists were hoping to find something completely else and were latest surprised in finding major accidental discovery.

Science really has something to offer for everyone. Just because you dislike one field doesn't mean you'll find entire science boring. We have been blessed with brain and curiosity so it's perfectly natural to love science. Don't go against the nature :)

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Science close to creating a tractor beam

Tractor beam is a stuff from sci-fi movies most notably Star Trek and refers to ability to trap and move objects using laser light. However according to the NASA scientist Paul Stysley „laser-based trapping isn't fanciful or beyond current technological know-how“.

Stysley and his team were awarded $100,000 to study three experimental methods that could make tractor beam a reality.

The first method includes the use of two counter-propagating beams of light. By alternately strengthening or weakening the intensity of one of the light beams - in effect heating the air around the trapped particle - researchers have shown in laboratory testing that they can move the particle along the ring's center. The downside of this technique is that it requires the presence of an atmosphere.

The second method refers to use of optical solenoid beams - those whose intensity peaks spiral around the axis of propagation. With this approach it is possible to trap and exert a force that drives particles in the opposite direction of the light-beam source meaning that the particulate matter is pulled back along the entire beam of light. Unlike the first method this one does not require atmosphere and relies solely on electromagnetic effects and could therefore operate in a space vacuum.

The third method is still theoretical and is yet to be tested in laboratory. It refers to the use of a Bessel beam. A true Bessel beam is non-diffractive which means that as it propagates, it does not diffract and spread out and looks like the ripples surrounding a pebble dropped in a pond. Scientists who support this theory believe that the laser beam could induce electric and magnetic fields in the path of an object. The spray of light scattered forward by these fields could pull the object backward, against the movement of the beam itself.

The scientists hope that tractor beams could be used one day for cleaning up orbital debris. But this is impossible with the current technological know-how. However, these three methods certainly have enough potential to be used for sample collection.

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Is eternal life the best possible scientific discovery?

What would you like the most in terms of new scientific discoveries? To many people eternal life seems like the most logical and most obvious thing when letting our scientific imagination flow. Eternity of life is really a form of the highest possible divinity, a thing that separates chosen immortals from all others, in many cases a godlike form.

The scientists believe that the answer for eternal life lies in our genetic structure, and speaking very plainly all that needs to be done is to find gene that is responsible for aging process and "freeze" it so it wouldn't make us older.

Of course this is only one part of the solution, the other part is to make our body free of diseases because not all people die old, and millions of people die at very early age from a variety of different diseases.

With the eternal life there would also have to be a strict population control because if none would die and people would continue to be born at today's pace earth would soon run out of space to support all those people, and people would soon have to think about colonizing other planets; though the way things are currently going, in few centuries time people will be really forced to look for other habitable planets, even without the discovery of eternal life.

Is eternal life predominantly a good thing? The most of us would say yes to this question even though this raises a fair share of different moral issues. With eternal life procreation would no longer be so important, and life itself would be looked at completely different perspective than it is today, especially since its antithesis death wouldn't exist.

What do you think about eternal life? Would such discovery create more good than bad or would it be an other way around and why? Do people really deserve to live forever or not?

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What is the main purpose of science?

The main purpose of science is to expand the human knowledge. Science is all about logic and rational as compared to religion which is mostly based on belief, and where logic and rationality play smaller roles.

Science isn't focused on looking at things from the philosophical point of view but from empirical point of view where data can be verified with different tests and methods.

Science has experienced significant development in the last century or so, but some vital questions such as the question about the origin of life still remain a huge mystery for scientists.

No matter how much science develops it will still be unable to find the answer to all questions. This, however, can not be looked at as something negative but more like a force that drives science forward, in search of new, important knowledge.

In some cases, it is very difficult to determine the boundaries of science, or to put it in other words how much is science allowed to go, and what is considered unethical (for instance the question of cloning people).

Like everything else science also needs some regulations because uncontrolled science could cause many negative things, doing quite the opposite of what science should really stand for, namely constantly improving human well-being.

Science today isn't the same as the science 2000 years ago was but some principles remain the same. The human knowledge constantly grows but with more knowledge there comes even more mysteries and unsolved questions, so science is always going forward.

Science tries to add more certainties into the uncertain world by having some well-defined and highly applicable laws (such as Newton's laws for motion, Einstein's relativity theory, etc).

Scientists do this by gathering empirical evidence to create rational hypothesis and theories that explain certain phenomenons. Gathering empirical evidence cannot be done without the constant experimenting so science is basically "a never-ending experiment that tries to establish causality between things".

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Top 10 things science could discover in future

1. Discover an "elixir for eternal life". On the other hand, if this happens then procreation would lose its purpose, and Earth could be in real danger of overpopulation.

2. Find solution to control climate and weather on our planet. With this we could really say goodbye to climate change issue.

3. Find an artificial way to create food. This would of course mean no more hunger in the world, the replicator from Star Trek series comes to mind here.

4. Teleportation, as this is definitely one of the coolest things from Sci-Fi movies, on the other hand this would no doubt raise some ethical issues. But as said before, this is so cool.

5. Discover cure for all diseases. I know, this somewhat correlates with No.1 but logically speaking eternal life can be also connected with some disease, and I certainly don't want to be bothered with some disease for eternity.

6. Discover the purpose of our existence in Universe. Why, when, who, who else, and similar questions.

7. Connected with No.6, find the answer whether God really exists or not, whether there is just one God or many gods, or whether there are some creatures that have Godlike abilities.

8. Discover the way to completely utilize human brain, humans currently use less than 10% of their brain, and who knows perhaps the only difference between humans and Gods is in the percentage when it comes to using brain.

9. Time machine. It would be so cool to travel in the past, and meet your ancestors, and the more curious ones could also take a look to see what future has in store for them.

10. Last but certainly not the least, to discover the secret of Mona Lisa's devilish smile, that's been bugging me for quite some time now:)

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Will science eventually turn people into Gods?

Since science is constantly improving and progressing, theoretically speaking science could even reach the level of turning people into almighty beings, something that we now associate with the term "God". God should be almighty being that creates and destroys life, creates new worlds, determines destiny of all creatures, and basically do whatever he/she pleases because he/she is almighty.

What if science really turns people into Gods in far far future? Think about it this way, if science comes up with the solution to make humans immortal wouldn't this be a first major step towards divinity of human race? In world without the death there we wouldn't feel the need to believe in supreme being because by defeating death we would become supreme beings.

If science eventually determines the origin of our universe and origin of life on our planet this would likely give science knowledge how to create new planets and new forms of life, which is another feature currently associated with God.

God could even be interpreted as the universe's top scientist that has somehow managed to learn all the available knowledge. I know that this may sound a bit silly and naive, but this is just one of many available theories we could be associating to God.

However, if people eventually become immortal this will likely lead to yet another controversy, namely what's the point of living if everyone's immortal? The current purpose of life is procreation, and procreation is something that is not on "top ten to do list" for immortal creatures.

Perhaps not knowing enough is much better option compared to being a God, after all doesn't discovering new things makes world more interesting and a better place? Knowing all would somehow spoil all the fun, just imagine world where there are no mistakes, no wrong choices, and each and every single person knows everything there is to know, doesn't this seem extremely dull?

What's your view on this?

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How to replicate photosynthesis in the lab?

Though we like to say for ourselves that we are technologically and scientifically very advanced there are still some "simple" processes that scientists cannot successfully copy in their laboratories, and one of these processes is photosynthesis, as scientists are still not able to copy plants in their process of converting sunlight into stored energy, and doing this process reliably day after day, year after year. If scientists would be able to copy this process this would turn solar energy into one of the most efficient energy sources in the world, making it competitive to fossil fuels, and this would in the end resulted in less harmful CO2 emissions responsible for climate change.

However, the road from "if" to "yes" is very long, and scientists, despite their constant research still struggle to be as effective as plants are. One of the main stumbling blocks on the road is the fact that the sun's rays can be highly destructive to many materials, which can lead to the degradation of harvesting systems, which can significantly decrease efficiency of the process on the long run. Plants are able to bypass this issue by constantly breaking down their light-capturing molecules and then reassembling them from scratch, so the basic structures that capture the sun's energy are always brand new.

Can science also bypass this issue? If the latest reports are correct, then yes it can, though still not as effective as plants can. In fact some MIT scientists have recently created a novel set of self-assembling molecules that can turn sunlight into electricity. These molecules can be repeatedly broken down and then reassembled quickly, just by adding or removing an additional solution.

Specifically for this process scientists produced synthetic molecules called "phospholipids" that form discs, and these discs provide structural support for other molecules that actually respond to light, in structures called reaction centers, which release electrons when struck by particles of light. The discs, carrying the reaction centers, are in a solution where they attach themselves spontaneously to carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes hold the phospholipid discs in a uniform alignment so that the reaction centers can all be exposed to sunlight at once, and they also act as wires to collect and channel the flow of electrons knocked loose by the reactive molecules.

The final results showed efficiency of these new molecular structures in converting sunlight at about 40 percent, which is double the efficiency of today's best commercial solar cells. Theoretically, the efficiency of the structures could be close to 100 percent. The efficiency would be far better if it wasn't for the fact that the concentration of the structures in the solution was low, so the overall efficiency of the device, and thus the amount of electricity produced for a given surface area was fairly low. But scientists are already working on ways to significantly increase the concentration, and thus improve the efficiency of the process.

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The meaning of science - What does science mean to all of us?

What makes science so special and what is the real meaning of science? Is science nothing more than the reflection of our ever-searching spirit that constantly looks to explore and learn or do we have to accept science as one of the greatest gifts given to us by God or some heavily advanced alien race? You can think of science in many different ways but you can be always be sure of one thing, namely that science is the driving force of humanity, something that pushed our forward throughout our existence. To cavemen, a simple fire was the ultimate science, to us the science are spaceships and artificial life, and who knows what will be the ultimate science for future generations.

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