For me it's also interesting how we closed the gap between scientific discoveries and the general public to know about them.
With the advent of pre-print servers, you can read this basically "next day".
I see this as a double-edged sword, at best. There is a reason why papers used to be published only after they were peer-reviewed. Now the media are starting hype-cycles on unreviewed research results, just to get the ad impressions before anyone else does. But I'm not sure if they are as diligent about following up on these stories and making later negative result front-page news as well.