The recent(ish) aerial LiDAR survey of the jungle in Guatemala has revealed thousands of previously undiscovered ancient Mayan structures that have the potential to completely change our understanding of pre-columbian civilizations.<br><br>Just an example of something new.  It's easy to look back through history at all the scientific discoveries we've made and compare them with the discoveries being made RIGHT NOW, and come to the conclusion that the pace of scientific progress has slowed, or that all the good stuff has already been found and there's nothing left to discover.  Remember, though, we look at the scientific discoveries of the past with the benefit of time. We know about the past because we've had time to study it and construct a narrative for it. We don't know about the present.  There is progress being made right now that we don't know about, because it hasn't found its way into common knowledge yet.  Scientific discoveries, however earth-shattering, take years or decades or even centuries before they become commonly known. <br><br>So what will people 200 years from now say about the science of today? Who knows? But there is always more to discover. Everytime we think we've filled in all the corners of the map, the camera pulls back to show just how much there is left to discover.,(reply>), Uhg, using LiDAR in heavy forest is such poor survey practice, wouldn't be surprised if the verts are absolutely shot, can't design anything with it...,(reply>), Finding history is cool and we will continue to do that, but challenging fundamental theories of science seems to be dying out,(reply>), @Michael Fox LiDAR is huge for geology too, in heavily forested areas like Washington state it has recently allowed us to determine the exact locations of previously undetected faults and ancient landslides.,(reply>), Same thing about the Amazon jungle basin right? New scans showed potentially lost civilizations or something like that.,(reply>), I remember seeing a show about how LiDAR has been used to find previously undetected meteorite impact sites.<br>Then the finds get confirmed by geology.