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Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

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11–20 of 241 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#11

I would say, in no particular order: * the fact that many of the dinosaurs had feathers * myriad of exoplanets * water on Mars (and many other new data on the planet) * Higg's boson (confirmed to 99.999% certainty) * Neanderthal genes present in modern humans * new ancient Mayan cities That's it from me for starters, hopefully others will join in.

What about the denosovians?

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#12

I would say, in no particular order: * the fact that many of the dinosaurs had feathers * myriad of exoplanets * water on Mars (and many other new data on the planet) * Higg's boson (confirmed to 99.999% certainty) * Neanderthal genes present in modern humans * new ancient Mayan cities That's it from me for starters, hopefully others will join in.

I'd argue that the discovery of Denisovans might be bigger than Neanderthal genes, but they're in the same ballpark. Modern sequencing technology has led to an explosion in discoveries about early human (and other organisms') evolution.

Actually, I'd just put "rapid sequencing" right near the top of the list. When I started grad school (in 2003 if you must know), there was a feeling that it'd be very hard to get any better/faster than Sanger sequencing (and modifications of the same). Now there's a plethora of technologies that are both faster and more accurate.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#13

I would say, in no particular order: * the fact that many of the dinosaurs had feathers * myriad of exoplanets * water on Mars (and many other new data on the planet) * Higg's boson (confirmed to 99.999% certainty) * Neanderthal genes present in modern humans * new ancient Mayan cities That's it from me for starters, hopefully others will join in.

Dark energy / accelerating expansion of the universe: well this goes back to 1998..

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#15
post #14

[deleted]

Deep learning is pretty old. People like Hinton, LeCun and Bengio have been working in the field for decades. From what I've read, Deep Learning has become popular because there is finally enough computing power to get it done.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#16
CRISPR for gene editing:

"Since 2013, the CRISPR/Cas system has been used for gene editing (adding, disrupting or changing the sequence of specific genes) and gene regulation in species throughout the tree of life. By delivering the Cas9 protein and appropriate guide RNAs into a cell, the organism's genome can be cut at any desired location."

(From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR)

Edit: Hear a recent Radiolab episode on the topic (http://www.radiolab.org/story/antibodies-part-1-crispr/)

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#18
post #16

CRISPR for gene editing: "Since 2013, the CRISPR/Cas system has been used for gene editing (adding, disrupting or changing the sequence of specific genes) and gene regulation in species throughout the tree of life. By delivering the Cas9 protein and appropriate guide RNAs into a cell, the organism's genome can be cut at any desired location." (From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR ) Edit: Hear a recent…

This means curing: Color Blindness, Liver Disease, Hopefully Cancers, Genetic Defects, MAYBE one day Aging?

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#19
post #18
post #16

CRISPR for gene editing: "Since 2013, the CRISPR/Cas system has been used for gene editing (adding, disrupting or changing the sequence of specific genes) and gene regulation in species throughout the tree of life. By delivering the Cas9 protein and appropriate guide RNAs into a cell, the organism's genome can be cut at any desired location." (From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR ) Edit: Hear a recent…

This means curing: Color Blindness, Liver Disease, Hopefully Cancers, Genetic Defects, MAYBE one day Aging?

More likely the first (profitable) applications will be: changing eye color, hair color, losing fat, changing height, changing skin tone. Billions in each market.

Re: Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?

#20

I would say, in no particular order: * the fact that many of the dinosaurs had feathers * myriad of exoplanets * water on Mars (and many other new data on the planet) * Higg's boson (confirmed to 99.999% certainty) * Neanderthal genes present in modern humans * new ancient Mayan cities That's it from me for starters, hopefully others will join in.

I'd argue that the discovery of Denisovans might be bigger than Neanderthal genes, but they're in the same ballpark. Modern sequencing technology has led to an explosion in discoveries about early human (and other organisms') evolution. Actually, I'd just put "rapid sequencing" right near the top of the list. When I started grad school (in 2003 if you must know), there was a feeling that it'd be very hard to get any…

> Now there's a plethora of technologies that are both faster and more accurate.

Sorry to nitpick, but the inherent error rate of high throughput sequencing platforms is still higher than capillary sequencing. This is more than mitigated for by the massive throughput advantage though.

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