As the weeks wind down to 2010, we’re bombarded with ‘Year’s Best‘ lists on everything music videos to movies. Colleagues and I have recently been discussing the best science papers–not just for 2009, but the entire past decade. We’ve had many ideas as there are obviously different kinds of breakthroughs across fields that have had enormous influence.

I’m very interested to hear the rest of the science community: What do you think have been the most significant, paradigm-shifting, and fascinating articles of the 2000’s? I’ll start with a particularly notable contribution from Colosimo et al. in 2005 to get the ball rolling…

Colosimo PF, Hosemann KE, Balabhadra S, Villarreal G Jr, Dickson M, Grimwood J, Schmutz J, Myers RM, Schluter D, Schluter D, Kingsley DM. Widespread parallel evolution in sticklebacks by repeated fixation of Ectodysplasin alleles. Science 2005 Mar 25 307 (5717): 1928-33

This study had a large impact on our understanding of biology with far reaching implications that “set a new standard in the identification of adaptive variants found in nature.” Evolutionary genetics hasn’t been the same since its publication.

Now let’s hear from readers…