“The proportion of papers that shake up a field has plummeted over the last 50 years. Analysis of citation data from 45 million manuscripts published between 1945 and 2010 showed that, compared with the mid-twentieth century, research done in the 2000s was much more likely to build on previous work than to send the field in a new direction. Reasons for the decline probably include a shift in how science is done — among larger teams and in a more competitive environment — rather than a change in research quality.” More and more.