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Topic: OT - Amazing Feats of Science

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betarhoalphadelta

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OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« on: May 16, 2024, 11:31:49 AM »
So here's one for the offseason. What are some of the most amazing or groundbreaking or even flabbergasting things that you've seen in the world that have come about due to feats of science?

I'll kick it off. My father in law has terrible hearing. As in "not that far from deaf" hearing. When tested for sentence accuracy (HINT test; being able to hear and recite words in a sentence purely auditory so you can't read lips amongst background noise) he scored 19%, which is terrible. 

About two months ago, he had surgery to install a cochlear implant. The device bypasses all your natural hearing physiology, and directly electrically stimulates your auditory nerve based on the output of a processor translating sound into signal. 

After a few weeks to heal up, they turned it on in early April. Sunday was the first day we saw him since then. He said when he first got it turned on, it was almost like bleeps and bloops; he described it as "sounding" like R2D2. But through the therapy associated with it, it's been consistently getting better since then as his brain has started to associate the new electrical signals from the processor into something that he can identify as speech. He's even started to pick up and identify other sounds he hasn't heard in years, such as birds chirping, etc. It's not entirely easy, because his brain has to re-learn the association between electrical impulses that aren't identical to how his physiological hearing generated stimulus to his auditory nerve, but it's been slowly coming back. He even said that while music (which he's always LOVED) is still not quite there, he had a Pink Floyd song come on the radio and suddenly it coalesced into sounding like what it's supposed to. 

A few days before Sunday, he had gotten his retest on the HINT. He scored 89%, which is in the "normal to mild impairment" category. Which is absolutely fantastic. And it's likely to continue to improve over time. 

To me, that's an astounding thing. Humanity created an electronic processor that bypasses all normal hearing and directly stimulates the auditory nerve, and now my FIL who was near deaf can hear almost normally. 

Who else has something amazing? 

847badgerfan

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2024, 11:47:56 AM »
That is incredible. 

OK, so this thread could go on for a long time. So many amazing feats through the years.

Top of mind stuff is mostly medical, I suppose.

I'm not big on calling any alteration of nature an amazing feat. 

Unless someone can come up with a way to get rid of mosquitos and other biting insects. That would be something.
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Cincydawg

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2024, 11:56:43 AM »
I've mentioned the Haber-Bosch process before.  

Most of what "we" know about is really technology, not science.  Science often has no immediate practical use in its developments, though scientists often do more practical development work using science.

A room temperature superconductor had been "on the horizon" for decades now, but we don't have it, we don't even have one that works at -78°C.  


847badgerfan

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2024, 12:01:38 PM »
The discovery of using fire to cook food is an amazing feat.

The development of the wheel. Amazing.
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betarhoalphadelta

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2024, 12:06:10 PM »
The discovery of using fire to cook food is an amazing feat.

The development of the wheel. Amazing.


Although fire and cooking food kinda enabled all the rest of it, if you believe the book Sapiens. Cooking food made it easier to digest, providing a lot more energy for the brain. 

Cincydawg

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2024, 12:08:56 PM »
The wheel is not much good without hhe axle.

Cincydawg

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2024, 12:37:44 PM »

847badgerfan

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2024, 12:45:56 PM »
The wheel is not much good without hhe axle.
Fire is not much good without a medium to burn and a source to spark.
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Cincydawg

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2024, 12:54:52 PM »
Some science feats that impress me:

Einstein's Miracle Year of 1905, an amazing collection of papers on four very different topics.

Because Einstein published all four of these papers in a single year, 1905 is called his annus mirabilis (miracle year).




847badgerfan

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2024, 12:55:54 PM »
Ouch on that formatting.
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Cincydawg

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2024, 01:00:28 PM »
The development of quantum theory in the early 1900s basically came out of spectroscopic observations folks were trying to explain.

The development of commercial polymers, one of the first was Nylon at duPont by a fellow named Carruthers..  He got a patent on a way to make Nylon, but missed a second way, and BASF patented the second way, and perhaps because of that Carruthers committed suicide.

The total synthesis of Vitamin B12 by Woodward, probably the first massive molecule of that complexity to be made synthetically.

Not exactly science, but Newton during a plague outbreak developed his theories and laws relating to motion, gravity, etc., and the calculus.


medinabuckeye1

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2024, 03:11:46 PM »
This little thing is a great example.

I never met my Paternal grandfather. He developed heart disease in his 50's and died of a heart attack (not his first) at age 60, five years before I was born.

My dad once told me that about a week after he died, Cleveland Clinic called about an appointment he had missed to do prep for open heart surgery.

Blocked arteries cause heart attacks. Before stents the only real solution was open heart surgery which involves cutting the sternum, cracking open the ribcage, and manually replacing clogged arteries with clean ones from elsewhere. The recovery from that is difficult mostly because of the cut sternum and cracked ribs.

Stents go in through a vein and it is more-or-less outpatient surgery with a minimal recovery time.

My dad got his first stents after a heart attack at age 60 and lived another 20 years before eventually dying of something else entirely.

Without this modern technology I'd have likely lost my dad almost 20 years sooner. If it had been widely available, I'd have likely had my Paternal grandfather around until I was a teenager.

847badgerfan

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2024, 03:14:02 PM »
Great example and, once again, in Medicine.
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Cincydawg

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Re: OT - Amazing Feats of Science
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2024, 03:18:21 PM »
I've told the story about my own cardiac arrest, which is what it is called oddly enough.   I had atrial flutter.  It was not fun.

They ran an abalation catheter up my femoral artery and "burned" three spots on the heart valve and I was cured.  The surgeon said this technique was developed around 1999.

 

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