Certain scientific advancements continue to amaze people as much today as they did when they were first announced.
The invention of the lightbulb, eradicating polio and other illnesses, man landing on the moon, and Dolly the sheep.
However, certain scientific achievements were either overlooked at the time of their arrival, or remain unsung and undervalued to this day.
Despite fundamentally changing the world we live in.
Redditor CosmosisJones42 was eager to hear the achievements and breakthroughs that Scientists believe deserve far more attention than they were given, leading them to ask:
"Scientists of Reddit: What's a discovery that should have blown people's minds but somehow got a collective shrug from the world?"
Giving HopeToPeople Who Had All But Lost It
"We basically 'cured' most people of cystic fibrosis in the last five years."
"It is the most miraculous medical breakthrough I can think of, comparable only to insulin treatment for diabetics or the triple cocktail for HIV patients in the 90s."
"In the span of five years, thousands of cystic fibrosis patients saw their projected lifespans go up to normal."
"The treatments don’t work on every CF mutation, but they are incredible."
"The Atlantic published an article last year that made me sob."- throwaway-94552
The Very Reason Some People Are Alive Today
"Honestly, mapping the human genome was assumed to be impossible for decades until it was done in a few short years without the fanfare it deserved."
"An absolutely mind-blowing accomplishment."- CompanyOther2608
No Longer A Death Sentence
"My girlfriend has Hashimoto and her thyroid is basically non-existent anymore."
"She only has to take one small pill in the morning to live a normal life instead of being dead by now."
"Millions of people in this world take one small pill each day and are able to live with a disease that would have been deadly back in the day."
"I just wanted to clarify that there is no cure for Hashimoto and my partner is simply taking Levothyroxine to compensate for the thyroid."- Buchlinger
How Little They Knew...
"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."- Myburgher
Not This Time, Big-C
"Cancer immunotherapy."
"Drugs 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."- ghostofwinter88
An Ongoing Debate, But One Worth Having
"Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells."
"Historically stem cell research used cells derived from embryonic sources."
"That raises tons of ethical debates."
"In addition, I believe it can cause issues with the body rejecting cells if they come from someone other than the transplant recipient."
"Scientists then discovered that you could take ordinary skin cells from a person and expose the cells to certain transcription factors which effectively reprogram them into stem cells."
"From there the cells can be differentiated into specific cell types like cardiac cells, neurons, etc."
"An example usage would be to take a Parkinson’s patient who has lost 95% of the cells of the neuronal pathway involved in motor activity and other things, harvest their skin cells, convert them to stems cells, differentiate them into neurons and transplant them into the brain thereby recovering some of the deficits."
"It’s unbelievably fascinating stuff and blew my mind when I first learned about it."
"I don’t think they’ve even scratched the surface of its potential."
"Especially when you combine it with CRISPR to modify the genetics so you can potentially cure/treat all sorts of diseases."- __fallen_angle
Literally Giving Countless Children A Spine!
"Cereal fortification in the 1990s."
"It has saved so many babies from spinal deformities."
"It is my favorite study + outcome."- shelby-goes-on-redit
A Not-So Central Nervous System?
"Not a scientist but a student here- central pattern generators."
"Neuroscientists figured out that our spine can generate rhythmic movement patterns (such as walking) without brain involvement."
"This is currently being explored for treatment options for spinal cord injury."
"A local researcher with a lab dedicated to this came to my neuroscience class last semester and did a guest lecture on it."
"He thinks we’re within 20 years of people paralyzed from SCI being able to walk again with an electric implant."
"I think about this at least once a week and have never heard this mentioned by non-neuroscience people."- lateniteboi420
On Closer Inspection...
"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."
"Sh*t, while we’re at it, add Hubble to that list."
"And the Space Shuttle missions."- Golemo
Chaos Theory?
"CRISPR-Cas9 is actual Jurassic Park sh*t."
"People who were born blind have had their sight regained due to genetic tinkering made possible by this biological tech."
"Mosquitos can be eliminated, practically eradicating Malaria by editing the genes, which are then passed on to offspring, making them sterile."
" Food can be, and has been, made more nutritious, as in the case of Golden Rice, producing more Vitamin A in impoverished countries."
"It’s Gattaca in the flesh, and people just shrugged"
"It's a massive achievement of humanity and another foothold in our ability to shape nature, but it is still inaccurate."
"Targeting specific genes in different species, let alone our own, is time-consuming and requires many trials to get right."
"Targeting multiple genes, at the same time, is exponentially more difficult."
"Remember that genes are just DNA sequences at random events on the entire chain."
"And each sequence is rarely actually next to each other on the chain."
"In short.. It's incredibly high-tech, and with incredible technology comes incredible questions and incredible consequences that need to be considered before fully deploying."- real_picklejuice
The Beginning Of The Chain...
"PCR technology turned genetics into a productive science in a way that very few people realize."- remes1234
Still An Ongoing Battle, But Not The Plague It Once Was...
"I grew up in the midst of the AIDS crisis."
"It was twice as scary as covid and ten times as devastating."
"The fact that they essentially found a cure and AIDS/HIV is no longer a physical or social death sentence is overwhelming in the best way and the fact that it's rarely talked about is overwhelming in the worst way."- the_owl_syndicate
And Yet People Still Resist...
"Vaccines."
"Go to the Wikipedia page for smallpox."
"Look at the second word."
"We completely eradicated a disease."
"It's gone."
"Forever."
"Deadly illnesses seemed to be just a law of nature."
"But instead of finding a way to cope with it, we decided to just rewrite that f*cking law because we f*cking could."
"And now we have idiots who won't take them because some f*cker wanted to sell his measles vaccine and make a few lawyers rich."- Significant_Snow4352
Evolution...
"The fact that long ago there were several different species of humans who lived at the same time."- Daxl
And Easier On The Eyes!
"The invention of the blue LED."
"That sh*t changed absolutely everything in electronics."
"The Blue LED allowed us the final piece needed to produce true 'white' light."
"Paved the way for everything with a screen."- Weak_Ad_7269
We live in an ever-evolving world where breakthroughs are made just about every day.
All of which deserve the same attention that only very few are given.
