"IT STARTED badly, and then it got worse. The year began with the news that a South Korean national hero had faked his apparently astonishing breakthrough in cloning, proceeded to the near death of six volunteers in a clinical trial and ended with news that millions will die unless we tackle global warming."...more there.

   At least the super bad Atlantic hurricane season predicted got squashed by El Nino. And we had a huge amount of *good news* as well, just a ton of good medical advances, "green power" type advances for both transmitted power and transportation advances, software certainly got a lot better although the politics and economics around it got more complicated. All in all I'd give 2006 a solid B, good versus bad from a tech standpoint. I was trying to think as I read this what my favorite article was that I put up over the year and I don't really have one because I like several areas of science and tech more or less equally. I'm pretty convinced that we will propser with all the new energy tech being developed. wind/solar/biofuels, etc all made significant advances into the economical and cost effective region. In biotech it was simply amazing, I am just floored daily with that, and physics and electronics are showing us that computer advances are no where near slowing down. In space it seems we are back with a vengeance and private flights are here and more coming soon, all the way to routine status in the not too far away future. We have some unresolved issues still with the booming nanotech industry, but I think that will get sorted out as well.

 On the flip side, I will say I am very glad I didn't have to post the "OMG teh avian flu mutated badly" article. On the personal cool tech side, getting wireless broadband had to be my highpoint this past year. I've been on dialup since 95 ;)

So, what do you think was the best science/tech achievement this year?