A new report on the future of computing, “Towards 2020 Science,” written by 34 leading biologists, physicists, chemists, Earth scientists and computer scientists, concludes that “computing no longer merely helps scientists with their work. Instead, its concepts, tools and theorems have become integrated into the fabric of science itself.”

The Economist has a good layperson’s summary of the report, but Nature goes one better with a series of articles on “Future Computing.” They envision a future where computers would constantly:

. . . measure every conceivable variable of an ecosystem or a human body, at whatever scale might be appropriate, from the nanometric to the continental. . . . They would act in concert, sharing the data that each of them gathers so as to process them into meaningful digital representations of the world. Researchers could tap into these ’sensor webs’ to ask new questions or test hypotheses. . . . Data networks will have gone from being the repositories of science to its starting point.

One only has to look at genomics or astronomy to realize there’s a good deal of possibility in this vision, though it seems to me there will always be a need for some researchers to get their hands dirty in the lab (or field). For another look at how computing is changing the way science is done, take a read through David Boswell’s article on the open-source software being used and distributed by NASA. Not only is the agency sharing their tools, though—they are also making much of their data available for anyone to analyze. Astronomy has a long history of amateur contributions; these new developments mean one doesn’t even need a telescope to participate. Whether this will launch a new era of “open-source science” or simply allow a few to dabble remains to be seen. (Thanks to Slashdot for the sighting.)