“Hidden Breakthroughs: 69 Scientific Marvels That Shocked Experts but Were Ignored by the World”
It seems relevant to this thread to inform everyone that in 1994, the invention of the year went to the widget in a can of Guinness that help carbonate a Guinness only when you opened it.
Second place was The Internet.
Sometimes the world doesn’t care because they don’t really understand.
I’m not sure shrug is the right word but mRNA vaccines are a miracle.
GoofinOffAtWork:
Yes they really frickin are.
I’m just an average guy, not a scientist or dr, but this technology, just wow. A huge game changer.
Regrettably, half of society thinks vaccines are bad.
Heavy heavy sigh.
The discovery of the memory engram, and artificially manipulating memories within the brain.
This guy at Boston University was able to not only identify the exact groups of neurons that correspond to an individual memory in the brain, but he was also able to manipulate those memories to delete or artificially create new ones. Really the most sci-fi thing I’ve heard about in real life. Check out Dr. Steve Ramirez’s Ted talk on YouTube, he’s a very down to earth guy and explains the entire subject fantastically.
Not a scientist but it blows my mind we casually walk around with devices that can show us where we are within a few feet anywhere on earth. And how to get to anywhere else. GPS, led screens, lithium batteries and CPUs. Sometimes it’s the combination that creates something mind blowing.
Lazer eye surgery.
invisibo:
I had a PRK procedure done a couple years ago. Being able to function without glasses has been life changing. Before surgery, I couldn’t see the ‘E’ everyone is supposed to be able to see. However, I can still recall the smell of my eyeball flesh being burned away :/
I feel like the James Webb telescope hype came and went very quickly. I was very hype keeping up with how intricate and difficult it was to design, launch and deploy that marvel orbiting the sun. If something were to go wrong, very small chance we could fix it. The Hubble’s problems we could fix because it was in Earth’s low orbit and astronauts could get in there and fix it. S**t, while we’re at it, add Hubble to that list. And the Space Shuttle missions.
Eastern bloc nations, Georgia in particular, have been using bacteriophages to battle bacteria infections for many decades while the west focused on developing antibiotics. You can get bacteriophage treatment in the US when they’ve tried everything else and you’ve somehow managed to survive it. Seems the d**g companies have a hard time figuring out how to make money on the treatment so it gets pushed to the very thin edge margin of medicine.
Update:
Bacteriophages are used as a matter of course in genetic research; I’ve specified and used them myself. This is not that.
Historically the technique is to find a naturally occurring (mutated) phage that will attack the specific bacteria in question. In the US, the overriding concern has been the potential of shiga-toxin, or similar, producing genes present in the phage. This latter is wrong headed two ways in my experience which makes the assertion suspect to me. Though I haven’t seen anything conclusive, the decades of research prior haven’t shown this to be an issue. Regardless, it’s an almost trivial test with today’s technology.
A fun question: Guess where you usually look for a suitable phage?
Cancer immunotherapy.
D***s like opdivo and keytruda have changed the game in cancer treatment. They are barely ten years old and most people don’t know about them.
GLP-1s. It’s nothing short of revolutionary. Not only does it stabilize blood sugar in diabetics, and promotes weightloss for obese people who have no luck with other treatments. It also curbs addictions to alcohol, smoking, even shopping. It has been shown to be protective for cardiovascular health, used for kidney failure. It’s a treatment for certain liver diseases. And that’s just what we have confirmed so far. In my book GLP-1s are right up there with penicillin and pasteurization.
“Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” (2012) by economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson.
Basically, these two men proved a causational relation between a country having well-funded institutions and country wealth. As in: they proved that strong and fair institutions CAUSE nation wealth. As in: having good institutions is the best indicator of future wealth (on national level).
While their book has been quite successful and their research won the 2024 nobel prize of economics, politics worldwide remain unchanged. Their research, which should singlehandedly disprove economical libertarianism and destroy the idea of preferring a “small government”, has done little to stop the resurgence of these policies in recent times.
