By greatest invention I mean something that had big and positive influence.

    • Todd Bonzalez
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      45 days ago

      Hell yeah on correctly recognizing what year was the first year of the 21st century! Thinking the new millennium started in 2000 is a pet peeve of mine.

  • @efstajas@lemmy.world
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    387 days ago

    I gotta say mRNA vaccines. It’s not technically a 21st century invention, but much of the work to make them viable started in the early 2000s. The speed at which the COVID vaccine got developed and widely deployed was honestly incredible and a massive W for humanity. I remember thinking a vaccine would be years away.

        • @TheFriar@lemm.ee
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          6 days ago

          It was…clearly a joke. A silly reaction to something that was wholesome and sweet. Have you never had a sense of humor? Or is the lack of one more recent and something maybe a doctor should know about

          Edit: wow. You really went back in my comment history to try to harass me? It doesn’t bother me as much as it worries me. Real creepy and, honestly, kinda sad behavior? You good?

            • @TheFriar@lemm.ee
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              5 days ago

              It wasn’t bullying. It was meant to make you laugh. It was meant to make everyone laugh. It wasn’t homophobic. It was the absurdity of reacting to flippantly something entirely wholesome and sweet that all comments were gushing over. Because the answer was sweet and wholesome. It’s really the kind of joke you can only make in an accepting and pro-lgtbtq community. Because the response was meant to be absurd. I didn’t realize it’d hit such a sore spot for you. I didn’t think it could, honestly. Because you way fuckin overreacted.

                • @TheFriar@lemm.ee
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                  5 days ago

                  lol you think I’ve never been bullied? I know full well what bullying is. Of course I didn’t go into your history. I had no idea you were gay. That doesn’t change the joke, though. I’m sorry to have hit a sore spot for you, that definitely wasn’t my intention. The joke was meant to be on me. The joke wasn’t that loving your goddamn kid is “gay.” How the hell could it be? The joke was that the reaction was meant to stand out as absurd and stupid. The joke was meant to point to my reaction as the thing that stood out as backwards. Not your love for your child. Nor being gay. It wasn’t even about the common use of the word “gay.” It was the idiotic caricature of someone who refuses to engage in anything remotely human or sentimental—it was basically a joke on toxic masculinity. Do you see that?

  • Count Regal Inkwell
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    35 days ago

    The Internet Archive. Technically founded in '96, but didn’t come into its own until the mid aughts. It is an awe-inspiring thing that corporate greed has been trying to take from us.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni
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    127 days ago

    Those little straws with the filters inside that allow people to drink contaminated water right from the source.

    • @shalafi@lemmy.world
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      97 days ago

      One of those saved my ass on a solo, overnight kayaking trip. I mostly brought beer, ice and food in my tow-behind cooler because I had a Life Straw.

      The trip was hell, most difficult thing I’ve ever done, wasn’t sure I’d make it out. Was good on water until the next day when I finally broke out onto the main creek.

      Cut the top off a can and sucked down 7 refills of creek water. Tasted exactly like warm, flat, tap water.

      • Rob Bos
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        56 days ago

        Look into Sawyer water filters. Much easier to use than lifestraws, last longer. Pressure instead of suction.

  • Resol van Lemmy
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    25 days ago

    The fediverse. I can’t believe nobody mentioned that yet.

    After all, this entire website wouldn’t exist without it, and we’d be all stuck on terrible, terrible Reddit (and Twitter, and… pretty much any centralized social media platform that are so well known).

  • @BlowMe@lemmy.world
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    77 days ago

    Like it or not. The iPhone. It changed the phone and how we use it. I literally use my android phone for everything now, as a credit card, ticket, pc, social, gaming… some people get laid and marry thanks to them…

  • @thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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    667 days ago

    We are in a time where a single invention can rarelt be great. For technological development you need thousands of small inventions, each that use previous technological breakthrough through decades of research. And even great things we have, are just refinement and miniaturization of things we already had.

    But if a single thing had to be said, I would say mRNA vaccines. Covid vaccines saved milions of lives, were developed in record times, and their technology could be used for HIV or even antitumoral vaccines.

    • TmpodM
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      67 days ago

      Was going to say that too. Regardless of the motives and driving forces behind the incredible speed at which the vaccines were developed (i.e. certainly a similar urgency could be applied to other diseases killing thousands and millions in poorer countries, but there ain’t as much interest in that), the mRNA technology proved quite powerful and an avenue to continue exploring in future research.

      • @fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        People forget that the research behind those vaccines had been going on for 30+ years. What was accelerated was the trials and the gathering and analysis of efficacy and safety data. The actual vaccine technology had been in existence for around a decade at the time.

        • TmpodM
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          27 days ago

          You’re right, I often forget about that. It’s still an incredible achievement.

    • @starman@programming.devOP
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      27 days ago

      The first successful transfection of designed mRNA packaged within a liposomal nanoparticle into a cell was published in 1989. “Naked” (or unprotected) lab-made mRNA was injected a year later into the muscle of mice.

      But on the other hand, first human test was in 2001

    • @xylogx@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Great list! I would also add to this PCR, the technology that allowed us to map the human genome.

      • dantheclamman
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        26 days ago

        PCR has been around since the 80s, though it has continued getting more efficient and cheaper

    • Dr. Bob
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      17 days ago

      CRISPR is the closest we get It might be the honorary winner since it was wasn’t fully exploited until the 21st century, even though it was cloned and being used in the 90s.