Far from progress occurring in medicine many things are going backwards. They coined Eroom's Law to describe it (Moore's law, but the wrong way). The literature on this is not very appealing to journalists. That's why coffee is the cure for, and cause of, everything.
Some answers to the question:
> What isn't being worked on?
In the West there is no real effort going into nuclear R&D or, you know, constructing actual power plants. I think in the US the last nuclear plant was two decades ago. In the UK I don't think they teach nuclear engineering anymore. The Chinese are now to build and maintain their systems! Germany... France is an exception I think.
There are no new types of infrastructure e.g. no personal transit systems, no waste disposal pneumatics. We sure do have a lot of broken roads nowadays though. Road technology hasn't had a game changer in thousands of years (somebody will pounce on this but you know what I mean, it's not like we're expecting Blade Runner), it's still horrendously expensive and difficult as ever. Did I mention there's ugly tangles of black cables hanging above our heads? Maglev exists and Japan is giving it away for free but there appears no will to use it.
With the recent exception of SpaceX, aerospace hasn't really taken off for decades. We were supposed to have Moon Hotels and political tension with moon miners by now. The kind of scale you saw in 2001: A Space Odyssey was seriously expected to occur but instead the whole effort was on the verge of dying out until very recently. In three years it will be half a century since the moon landings. That is quite a while. The quick fire explanations won't do.
There has been no major tangible medicinal advantage to a large number of people from the discovery of DNA let alone the Human Genome Project. I know this one makes me sound bombastic, but come on, tell me how I'm wrong. I was at the doctor the other day and asked him whether having my DNA record would help him out. He said not really and that it's still better to examine my family medical history. Lots of press coverage isn't progress.
In materials technology good insulation is still very expensive. You can get great insulation but only for great money. If aerogels came down in price by 10x that would really lift the bar.
Energy Storage is just... A century with no major breakthroughs.
Biotech is a one horse town called Monsanto. GM is banned in many countries.
Animals. They are great, but they are not becoming more interesting. Back in the day people created all manner of breeds of cats and dogs. I don't see breeders or gene splicers coming up with freaky or cool pets for us. Really more people ought to be outraged. Remember micropigs? It seems they might not be real.
Freeman Dyson's vision is neglected so far. The last thing is people. This is more subjective but I believe people have become immeasurably more boring. Look at old photos of people. They had character. They fought eels, took trips to jungles. Everybody was Ron Swanson and it was fucking awesome.