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Ask HN: What are the greatest discoveries in the last few years?
14 points by chistev 19 hours ago | 4 comments
A repost of an old thread 11 years ago -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9731111



No particular order but;

1. Transformers

I think they need to be looked into more. They just work too well.

I feel like they have a secret within that is yet to be known.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762

2. The 2016 Noble Prize in Medicine

Autophagy has such interesting properties. It can probably do alot more for us now than any new pill or gene editing tool

[2] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2016/press-releas...

3. zk-STARKS

I can prove to you than X * Y = Z, without ever revealing what, X, Y or Z are. And I can do this for any function, or math operator.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/189

4. TLock

I can encrypt my will, in a way such that. It can only be read after X years.

And I do not need a trusted third party to do it.

[4] https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/046.pdf

[4] https://youtu.be/Xh849Ij3lhU


Biggest discovery is that humans are much worse than expected, and are always rushing to the next big thing forgetting to enjoy the present.

Seriously shouldn’t the whole world slow a bit down and enjoy our lives a bit?


I’d put CRISPR-based genome editing high on the list, especially with the recent prime and base editing advances. It’s wild how fast the tech moved from concept to real-world gene therapy trials. Curious what people think about AI-driven protein folding breakthroughs too.

Interesting that CRISPR was the top answer in 2015 too