‘Which mind-blowing scientific discoveries got a collective shrug from the world?’ – 17 breakthroughs that deserved better

Believe it or not, there’s plenty of good news in the world that deserves celebrating. It’s just that the information economy tends to thrive on sharing the bad stuff.

To give positive stories the attention they deserve, Redditor CosmosisJones42 turned to the learned crowd over at r/AskReddit and decided to ask this question about the scientific brekathroughs that never got their flowers…

‘Scientists of Reddit: What’s a discovery that should have blown people’s minds but somehow got a collective shrug from the world?’

These are the top answers which will hopefully renew your faith in the universe…

1.
‘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

2.
‘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

3.
‘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.’
-Buchlinger

4.
‘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

5.
‘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 stem 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

6.
‘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

7.
‘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. Shit, while we’re at it, add Hubble to that list. And the Space Shuttle missions.’
-Golemo

8.
‘CRISPR-Cas9 is actual Jurassic Park shit.

‘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.’
-real_picklejuice

9.
‘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