NATURE: Here’s what scientists searched for in 2018: AI is up, stress is down

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The popularity of ‘blockchain’ — a kind of digital, distributed ledger for recording digital transactions — also exploded, jumping to second place from nineteenth on the Scopus list. That jump might indicate that researchers are hoping to apply blockchain to their work, says Kieron Flanagan, who researches science and technology policy at the University of Manchester, UK.The trends might also reveal cycles of hype over new technologies. “There’s a kind of an early phase where they take off — there’s loads of enthusiasm, loads of expectations — and then at some stage a kind of slowing down,” says Flanagan.