Modern Research

Two truely awesome science research accomplishments:
1) Around the year 1350, a massive plague swept europe, and they were overwhelmed with dead people, so they just threw them into "plague-pits" for burial.  This year, scientists dug some of them up, and using the magic of PCR, demonstrated the presence of bacteria from Yersinia pestis, aka the bubonic plague.  I'd like to re-emphasize that 700 years later, they found bacterial DNA and analyzed it.  http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1001134

2) Giant Dragonflies raised in Tempe, AZ.
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/abstract_181665.htm