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“Most People Are Just Completely Unaware That It Exists”: 30 Big News That Somehow Slipped Through The Cracks
No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to keep up with everything that’s happening in the world. Staying up to date on global politics, natural disasters, pop culture events, local tragedies, and more would be a full-time job. But if there’s one thing that we should probably know more about, it’s scientific advancements and breakthroughs.
Redditors have recently been discussing mind-blowing discoveries that didn’t get nearly as much news coverage as they should have. So we hope this list will teach you something new about what’s been going on in our world, and be sure to upvote the news you wish you had heard sooner!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
In 2007, Time magazine had the greatest inventions of the year. Number one on the list was the Apple iPhone and was featured on the front page.
In an honorable mention paragragh, there was a machine created that can change the proteins in human blood so any blood type can be used for blood transfusions, not needing there to be a match in blood types before procedures are done.
RELATED:
#2
Bispecific antibodies to treat cancer.
Why? It’s not chemo so no bone damage, no increased risk of other cancers, no long-term neurological problems, no hair loss, no digestive problems. None of that. But, it’s more effective than chemo and easier to administer.
It’s already approved as a last option for some cancers and works incredibly well in that setting. There are numerous clinical trials happening right now designed to prove that it should replace chemo entirely for some cancers and they are figuring out how to use it for more cancers.
How do I know this? My wife got in an early clinical trial and it put her in deep remission with almost zero side effects. She’s back how she was 5 years ago. No weakness or diminishment at all.
Almost nobody seems to know anything about this.
BCSteve:
Oncologist here, bispecifics are incredibly promising! You get the benefits of CAR-T cells without having to actually go through a bone marrow transplant, and unlike CAR-Ts you can reverse it just by not giving the drug. They honestly are pretty amazing, and I can’t wait to see more of what they have to offer in the future.
#3
MRNA vaccines are like this generation's moon landing. They are a staggering scientific achievement and the gateway to curing all kinds of diseases, and instead of developing this technology we're abandoning vaccines entirely and giving measles to our children.
unisia3507:
mRNA vaccines are quite highly rated but massively underrated. The fundamental research was done for years beforehand, but when push came to shove the researchers were just like "shall we work over the weekend and knock out a covid vaccine?". It was literally a weekend job to go from no treatment to a safe, well-targeted, and effective vaccine for a pandemic which was crushing the world's economies and killing millions. That's some sci-fi MCU nonsense. You could catch a cold and have a vaccine ready for that specific strain before you stop sneezing.
Skywitness 1 day ago
The US Secretary of Health and Human Services had his brain eaten by a worm and snorted c*****e off toilet seats. Further research in US healthcare will be still born.
#4
In 2024 an SSH encryption backdoor (presumed to be from Russia) had the potential to essentially wipe out 80% of the Internet. A German programmer named Andres Freund just happened to notice a tiny 0.05s slowdown on his computer, and from that, discovered that every version of those computers was compromised. Supercomputers, server farms, regular people all had this vulnerability.
When it was discovered and solved, the media was just like “oh cool- good find random guy!”
Mainstream media isn’t really technologically literate enough to understand how __severe__ this could have been. I’m talking planes falling out of the sky, banks failing, hospitals going dark all across the world. Like the crowdstrike bug on steroids. We were likely weeks away from this without even knowing it.
#5
The Japanese figured out how to REGROW TEETH.
And I’ve only seen a few little blurbs about it.
#6
New classes of antibiotics.
JesseCuster40:
Things like this are what make me thankful the world is full of people far more intelligent than me. I'm just trying to make it through the work week, and people are out there creating new antibiotics.
#7
Jan. 6th storming of the Capital.
Political candidate falsely claims they won and the election was stolen. Directs angry mob of supporters at Capital. Then ignores the responsibility of his government held position to intentionally delays response that results in the deaths of both police officers and protesters.
mst3k_42:
January 6. Storming the capital like that should have had more serious consequences. And they sure shouldn’t have been pardoned.
Rowley Birkin, QC 1 day ago
Muh land of the free, muh dumbocracy, muh seckund abdumbnunt, muh two party coin-toss dictatorship, muh tea in the harbour et cetera and so forth.
#8
CRISPR. We basically got a cut and paste tool for DNA and the world went yeah neat and scrolled past it like it was a phone update.
#9
The Panama Papers revealed a massive conspiracy of global tax evasion, no-one batted an eye.
The journalist who broke the story was quietly eliminated.
Roman Arendt 1 day ago
It's not much, but it's a start: the first trial regarding the Panama Papers in Germany took of last week in Cologne. There's more to come, but it will be a long way. 😐
#10
It's pretty obvious but the Epstein files. Each release is more vile and incriminating. But folks are still not angry enough.
maxdragonxiii:
It's crazy to see the world all over arresting people and USA doing... absolutely nothing.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 1 day ago
An Orange buffoon is starting a war in the Middle East to desperately distract people from the Epstein files.
#11
I kinda feel like the invention and rollout of PrEP has been completely missed by anyone who isn’t gay. We literally have a medicine, where if you take it regularly, you won’t get HIV. That’s a milestone that should be celebrated every day. Most people are just completely unaware that it exists.
Rowley Birkin, QC 1 day ago
PrEP is a class of medicine rather than a specific d**g, and this post doesn't even come close to explaining what a miracle it really is.
#12
Handwashing.
A doctor implemented handwashing before we knew bacteria existed, and the mortality rate of his patients reduced significantly post surgery.
He was laughed at by his peers.
Forrest Hobbs 1 day ago
Not an anonymous 'a doctor' - Ignaz Semmelweis. His peers didn't laugh at him. They hounded him to madness and death. Link follows.
#13
That almost all "recycled" plastic has always been burned and dumped, in global quantities that are absolutely mind boggling.
Substantial_Pea3462:
I talk about this all the time and people either don’t believe me or don’t care. And whenever I go to throw away something plastic idk what I’m supposed to do with it. This one just makes me so mad.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 1 day ago
There are mushrooms that can eat plastic and break it down safely. Scientists are developing methods to use these mushrooms on large enough scales to be effective.
#14
The discovery that the bacteria H. pylori is common cause of chronic upper gastrointestinal inflammation and peptic ulcers and is also a major risk factor for the development of stomach cancer (two different types of stomach cancer, actually). The researchers who made the discoveries were largely mocked for their theory that peptic ulcer disease could be an infectious disease. Their critics stopped laughing, however, when they won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2005.
#15
For me, it’s the first image of a black hole.
We literally took a picture of something that doesn’t even let light escape. That sounds like sci-fi. A few days of “wow that’s cool” and then everyone just went back to scrolling.
I remember thinking, wait… how is this not a bigger deal?
Zig Zag Wanderer 1 day ago
It wasn't much of a deal because it was blurry and not very interesting looking
#16
We stopped a global pandemic in under a year and invented a whole new kind of vaccine to do it.
martin734 13 hours ago
Yes, we stopped it in a year, but it was not with a newly invented vaccine. It was done with a vaccine that had been in development for over 30 years. The Covid-19 mRNA vaccine was virtually identical to the influenza mRNA vaccine that had been extensively tested and was ready for licencing.
#17
The discovery of microplastics in human blood, placentas, and basically every organ in our bodies should have been a civilization-altering wake-up call but instead we just kind of went huh that's unfortunate and kept drinking from plastic bottles. We are literally finding plastic particles in newborn babies and the collective response has been shockingly muted. In 50 years we are going to look back at this the same way we look back at lead in gasoline and asbestos in buildings and wonder how we knew and still did nothing.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 1 day ago
We are practically pooping Lego bricks and no one is even remotely bothered.
#18
We cloned a sheep in 1999.
Suspiciously, 27 years later, there has been no chatter about the successful cloning of humans.
Not “so and so went to jail for trying”; Not “The UN has unanimously passed this law permitting/forbidding human cloning by any country”; Not “They walk among us”…
Just silence.
And that part is weird to me.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 14 hours ago
The UN have been secretly building a Clone Army and they'll use it once the Orange Dictator finally goes fully off the rails and decides to conquer the world
#19
That DuPont poisoned the whole world with microplastics and they're still allowed to do business. Children are being born with microplastics, it's in semen, and even in the soils of untouched areas in nature. I haven't seen so much as a class action lawsuit.
Zig Zag Wanderer 1 day ago
Oh dear. Just wait until you find out about dupont and CFCs. They weren't any kind of problem until dupont's patents were running out, then they've suddenly become world-destroying, according to dupont. But it was ok, dupont magically had some new different chemicals to do the same things (although less effectively) that they had patents for! These people aren't your friends, and never have been.
#20
The fact that the we proved your gut bacteria can influence mood and anxiety and everyone just went cool and kept stress-eating gas station snacks.
Like… we basically confirmed there’s a second brain in your stomach and society responded with a probiotic yogurt commercial and moved on.
Feels wildly under-hyped for something that can literally change how you feel day to day.
Huddo's sister 20 hours ago
This is because there isn't any long-term research yet on how we can use this information. There is some indication faecal-transplant may be useful, but it's a very small sample size and seems hit and miss.
#21
The tardigrade-in-space thing. actual living organisms exposed to the vacuum of space and cosmic radiation, and some survived. the implications for panspermia -- the idea that life could travel between planets hitching a ride on rocks -- went from fringe hypothesis to "okay maybe" and most people just scrolled past it. if that finding had come out 200 years ago it would have shaken every religion and philosophy on earth. in 2019 it got a three-day news cycle and then everyone moved on.
#22
The fact that we landed a rover on **Mars** and drive it around with cameras.
#23
The discovery that most animals can feel pain and experience emotions. For centuries we treated animals as unfeeling automatons, but scientific evidence shows they have complex emotional lives. Yet factory farming and animal cruelty continue on an industrial scale with little public outrage.
Callum Young 23 hours ago
More and more countries are passing legislation to improve the lives of animals (check out "good news" sites); more and more people speak out on their behalf. The progress is painfully slow, but still progress.
#24
I really thought the stuff Edward Snowden risked his life to tell us should have concerned people a lot more.
#25
In 2023, the extinct language Kalašma was re-discovered on a 13th-century BC tablet and within a year, it was determined to be from the Indo-European language family.
More specifically from the extinct Anatolian branch, which is the earliest to have split from the Proto-Indo-European language (~3500 BC). This branch had languages that had existed up until maybe the 2nd century BC, but today, we know so little about them that we don't even know how to classify them on the Anatolian branch.
#26
The discovery that should have changed everything is **Social Baseline Theory (SBT)**.
Through a mental health and neurobiological lens, SBT proves that the human brain does not view being alone as a "neutral" state. Instead, our brains are biologically hardwired to expect the presence of others to help manage our mental and metabolic costs. When you are with someone you trust, your brain literally shuts down certain threat-response regions, "outsourcing" its stress regulation to your social circle.
Essentially, social connection isn't just a "nice to have" or a social lubricant; it is a primary biological resource as vital as calories or oxygen. When we are isolated, our brains have to work significantly harder to "render" and monitor the world for threats, leading to a state of constant, high-load metabolic strain. This suggests that many mental health struggles like anxiety and depression are not just "internal glitches," but predictable biological responses to a lack of social support.
The world largely gave this a collective shrug because the implications are deeply inconvenient. Acknowledging SBT would require us to admit that our modern culture of hyper-individualism is biologically nonsensical. It’s much easier for society to tell an individual to "practice self-care" than it is to admit that our current way of living in isolated suburban boxes or staring at screens, is a public health crisis that physically wears out the human brain.
#27
The material brought back from an asteroid (Bennu) older than earth, thats most likely from the seabed of a long destroyed planet, that contains the building blocks of life. Literally all life on earth could be the second genesis of life from a planet destroyed more than 5 billion years ago.
#28
The discovery of nitrogen-fixing organelles confirmed theories on the evolution of single celled life forms with implications on everything from extraplanetary research to farming. The other endosymbionts you've heard of are chloroplasts and mitochondria, we discovered a third.
Every discovery of plastic-degrading enzymes.
#29
NASA performed a(n unmanned) flyover of Pluto in 2015. The distance and size of Pluto make the project a staggering accomplishment. The world was flat for most humans not so long ago, and still is for a small fraction of folks who may or may not be pretending to believe it for attention's sake.
Forrest Hobbs 1 day ago
Earth was flat for most humans not so long ago? Really? Eratosthenes measured the Earth's circumference in (very roughly) 200 BCE. Humans have known the Earth is roughly spherical since the dawn of history.
#30
How in the hell has no one mentioned PRISM yet?!
PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD US-984XN.PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google and Apple under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms.[6] Among other things, the NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier, and to get data that is easier to handle.
Literal mass surveillance at unprecedented scale. Lord knows how much more sophisticated it is these days with AI and the likes of Peter Thiel / Palantir.
Note: this post originally had 41 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
What do you think ?
Peter Bear 1 day ago
The vast majority of people, myself included, are not educated enough for 'vague scientific discovery' to be understood clearly. And if that discovery doesn't have some sort of benefit, most people (myself included, in all ashamed honesty) don't pay it as much attention as we should. That's why I try to educate myself as much as possible, so I don't miss out on neat discoveries.
David Paterson 1 day ago
I've made some mind-blowing scientific discoveries, but try getting them past peer review. The hoops you have to jump through to get published.
Peter Bear 1 day ago
The vast majority of people, myself included, are not educated enough for 'vague scientific discovery' to be understood clearly. And if that discovery doesn't have some sort of benefit, most people (myself included, in all ashamed honesty) don't pay it as much attention as we should. That's why I try to educate myself as much as possible, so I don't miss out on neat discoveries.
David Paterson 1 day ago
I've made some mind-blowing scientific discoveries, but try getting them past peer review. The hoops you have to jump through to get published.
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