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

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

#141

Post by ghaff »

CoryG89 wrote: post #30
zmeden wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd consider most of the things you listed to be inventions/innovations. Discovery, for me, is closely connected to uncovering of a new phenomena or an effect. And invention/innovation would be the use of it for some specific purpose.

Surely the techniques and logic used to empower such inventions and innovation had to be discovered by someone at some point. For every great new invention is their not usually some discovery made sometime prior which ushered it in? For things like smaller and smaller computer chips. I'd say that Moore's Law was discovered, not invented.

Moore's Law really is neither as it's more of an observation (and, arguably, a self-fulfilling prediction). Many inventions (made possible by various discoveries in semiconductor physics and the like) have enabled Moore's Law to more or less continue. But Moore's Law itself is not any sort of natural law.

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

#142

Post by refurb »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #115
refurb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt cosmetic uses will be the first. The FDA approves drugs based on risk vs. safety. Having the wrong eye color is pretty low risk in terms of health. Gene editing will be used in fatal or severely disabling diseases with no other options. Even if there are severe side effects, the FDA will likely approve them.

The FDA will have little to do with a pill sold on the internet. Folks will do anything to look good. This is going to happen, ready or not.

Modifying your genes via a pill sold on the internet? They might give it a try, but they'll get shut down real quick without FDA approval.

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

#143

Post by jotux »

Not very "fundamental" but I'm very excited about low-power advancements in ICs. There are companies like AmbiqMicro making microcontrollers that are reaching 30uA/MHz and 100nA sleep modes. This is starting to make ambient and RF energy harvesting viable.

http://ambiqmicro.com/low-power-microcontroller

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

#145

Post by nostrademons »

natrius wrote: post #118
ForHackernews wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "low costs" of bitcoin are a myth. Bitcoin transactions are extremely expensive, both financially and ecologically, it's just that those costs are currently subsidized by block rewards to miners instead of paid by consumers/end-users. If bitcoin were ever to be widely adopted, the high fees would have to be passed on to users: http://www.coindesk.com/new-study-low-bitcoin-transaction-fe... At some level, this bas…

I am not talking about Bitcoin in particular, nor am I talking about transaction fees . I am talking about transaction costs and blockchains in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost

Of the categories of transaction cost listed in that article, the only one blockchains address is the policing & enforcement cost. Even then, it only addresses one side of the policing cost: it ensures that the seller receives payment without need for a trusted intermediary, but it does nothing to ensure that the buyer receives a good that is of acceptable quality and performs the function agreed upon.

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

#146

Post by splawn »

nickbauman wrote: post #140
Protostome wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're GMOing crops long before the DNA revolution. Plants were selectively bred for certain qualities since the dawn of agriculture. None of fruits or vegetables we eat in the present (even without GMO) could be found naturally few hundred years ago. We were genetically modifying them without really knowing the mechanism. There some ecological as well as regulatory challenges. That doesn't mean GMO isn't a solid appr…

Selective breeding is not the same as editing a genome. You cannot "selectively breed" a fish gene into a tomato.

sure you can, its all just DNA... it just takes waaay longer.

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

#147

Post by Gatsky »

AC__ wrote: post #73

Vampires! Technically speaking, parabiosis. Although it is not actually a new discovery at all, personally I'm convinced there are humans who have already transfused young blood plasma(as the linked article points out illegal stem cell transplants are common as well). Yeah, that's right, vampires. http://www.nature.com/news/ageing-research-blood-to-blood-1....

I have gotten into the habit of appending "except when it doesn't" to every one line life sciences headline...

http://www.nature.com/news/young-blood-anti-ageing-mechanism...

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

#148

Post by mark-r »

Protostome wrote: post #77
beat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with GMO is that it's basically a vendor lock-in scheme for agribusiness giants. It's not a good engineering solution to the real food problems we face. Of course, the DONT EAT THE SCIENCE OR IT WILL GIVE YOU THE CANCER political nonsense is wrong. That doesn't let GMO off the hook, though. The problem it attempts to solve, on the surface, is increasing the productivity of monocropping. But productivity i…

We're GMOing crops long before the DNA revolution. Plants were selectively bred for certain qualities since the dawn of agriculture. None of fruits or vegetables we eat in the present (even without GMO) could be found naturally few hundred years ago. We were genetically modifying them without really knowing the mechanism. There some ecological as well as regulatory challenges. That doesn't mean GMO isn't a solid appr…

The magnitude of the changes that are possible now are so far beyond what was available with selective breeding, it's nonsensical to consider them in the same league. I wish people would stop trotting out that argument.

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

#149

Post by anigbrowl »

discardorama wrote: post #127
brockers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear the graphene will fall by the wayside due to legal and social pressure. News sources have already pointed out that it is significantly more dangerous, if inhaled, than asbestos; another material this is insanely useful for a number of applications but is effectively blackballed as a engineer-able material. Another example is nuclear energy. Clean, abundant, and extremely safe. The fear of radiation exposer has…

> Another example is nuclear energy. Clean, abundant, and extremely safe. Yeah, but what do you do about the waste? The US has tons of waste sitting around. The grand plan of using Yucca Mountain to store the waste fizzled. We have just postponed the cost to a future generation who'll have to deal with the waste we're producing today.

Harry Reid is due to retire from the Senate and whoever replaces him will not wield nearly as much power as he did when Senate leader. I think it will go into operation in 5-10 years.

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

#150

Post by anigbrowl »

brockers wrote: post #43
PaulRobinson wrote: post #7

I'd say that in terms of what we are able to do next, Graphene wins by a long way. Graphene is remarkable stuff, literally. I'd say in terms of impact on philosophy, religion and way of life, the large number of planets we're discovering.

I fear the graphene will fall by the wayside due to legal and social pressure. News sources have already pointed out that it is significantly more dangerous, if inhaled, than asbestos; another material this is insanely useful for a number of applications but is effectively blackballed as a engineer-able material. Another example is nuclear energy. Clean, abundant, and extremely safe. The fear of radiation exposer has…

That's a good point, but asbestos used to be in everything from pipe covers to shingles to oven gloves. I don't see any proposals for such bulk deployment of graphene.
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