Of all new innovations, or theories that are being currently worked on at the moment, which one, if discovered, is more likely to be the biggest breakthrough for the human race?
>>7979860
AI or human genetic engineering.
Realistic sex robots. That is the primary goal that all technology has been moving us towards. Nothing else even matters.
>>7979874
Hu-hu-hu-hu yeaah baby, yeah!
>>7979872
seconding this.
>>7979872
Too bad biochemistry is boring as hell and "genetic engineering" is a circle jerk name for splicing a gene (if you've ever done it its easy as hell). I'd say a solid 95% of the work after you splice the gene is proving that you successfully spliced/measuring its properties. Both of which means hours and hours of boring lab work. I am not sorry to be studying organometallics instead of Biochem.
>>7979926
>genetic engineering" is a circle jerk name for splicing a gene (if you've ever done it its easy as hell
As somebody who is actively earning their PhD doing protein engineering I can confidently say that you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
Saying that genetic engineering is just splicing genes is like saying that computer programming is just pushing buttons on a keyboard or that playing the guitar is just strumming some strings.
Yes, technically you are right, but it is such a gross oversimplification that it is beyond ridiculous. You have absolutely no fucking clue what you are talking about.
How about you just light some fuel on fire and put something in orbit while you are at it.
>>7979919
because when you get your "major" in "college" you shouldn't specialize, just take math/physics and do cs afterwards
>>7979932
What do you do in a normal day? Don't try to impress anyone with technical jargon that makes you sound smart. Tell us what you do.
>>7979947
>Don't try to impress anyone with technical jargon that makes you sound smart.
Oh, so you mean don't say what I do...
There isn't a normal day. The research is constantly moving to different phases and we are doing different experiments every few weeks.
We started by modeling the protein of interest in a computer model. We used Rosetta to do this. We had time on one of the most powerful super computers in the world, Bluegene, to do this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gene
So after running massive simulations on a super computer we found a construct that we think will do what we want. I then designed the gene that will produce this protein, cloned it into a plasmid, transformed the plasmid into e.coli bacteria, grew the bacteria, expressed the protein, purified the protein using various chromatography methods, concentrated the protein and got it in the proper solutions to do experiments on it to see if it works.
We also did circular dichrosim spectroscopy to check that it was structured. It had secondary structure so we solved the crystal structure, so I purified it again and grew protein crystals through the hanging drop vapor diffusion method. We got the crystal structure but there was some unclear structure in the loop regions so we did NMR spectroscopy on it.
To do that I had to grow it again but in minimal media labeled with Nitrogen 15 isotopes, Carbon 13 isotopes, and heavy water to provide deuterium instead of hydrogen. Once I purified that special isotope version of the protein we solved the structure via NMR which can give an idea of how it moves in the flexible loop regions.
I'm now doing various kinetic experiments determining its activity rates on various substrates.
>>7979970
What pathway did you take to get into your career?
I'm about to go to med school but am considering an SMP in human genetics and genomics other my gap year because human genetic research interests me highly.
>>7979993
Bachelors in microbiology 2.7 GPA (too much partying, drinking, and getting high)
Worked as a lab tech full time in a university lab for about 2 years after graduating. Helped solve molecular structures of bacterial proteins via NMR.
Professor highly suggested I pursue grad school. He and some of the other professors I worked with wrote me stellar letters of recommendation which offset my mediocre GPA and got me into grad school (along with a pretty good GRE score)
Now earning my PhD in a biochem/protein design/bioinformatics lab
>>7979943
Ignoring the dumb trolls CS major is one of the fastest way to start publishing papers. You can start writing code for scientific problems from your 3rd years while other majors struggling to write a bug-free code (this is fucking important, as it's the first step to validate your experiments). Saying CS major are all about software engineering is dumb as you ignored the fact that the top 5% of CS major usually have a lot of time to do research or to read other materials and they have little problems doing so.
I am a future CS grad with 4.0 GPA and a paper during my undergrad. Was interested in Physics and majored in Math during my high school (yes, there's a major high school system for talented students in my country), never once regretted taking CS.
TL;DR: if you think that majors are all about what you learn in your classes only, you're probably dumb.
>>7979872
>AI or human genetic engineering.
Meh. There's no doubt these will be a big deal in the far future, but they are the types of things that need to be extremely advanced before they have a noticeable impact... I mean we've had ersatz AI for 10 years now, its getting quite well developed and yet its still totally worthless, on the consumer level, nothing more than a gimmick. The current rate of research will probably have to continue for several decades before we feel an impact beyond the superficial. As for human genetic engineering, the problem is we have to actually decide to do it. People aren't going to just jump on board. Some groups of transhumanists will decide to forge ahead on their own and there will be some considerable backlash. Sorting out the politics surrounding the ethical questions will take significantly more time than just developing the technology.
If you want something mundane, not sexy, and immediate, I would say the simple automation of manufacturing, a project several centuries in the making which is currently being brought to completion. The percentage of the population that needs to work in factories to service the demand for manufactured is entering a logarithmic freefall, and on the other side of that transition await the beginnings of a post-scarcity civilization if we can manage to not derp up the the next 10-15 years.
Oh, and fusion and room-temp superconducting could be big parts of the infrastructure of a fully post-scarcity world, so they should get a mention as they could theoretically be here any day now although I think realistically its more like 50-100 years.
>>7980035
That's true for all of it, and in fact for nearly everything that changes way of life fundamentally.
I presumed incorporation was the idea moreso than theory or fledgling experiential success.
>>7979872
this. it'll help end racism by imputing superior asian/white genes for IQ, creativity, low crime into blacks, abos, middle easterners, latinos, indians, south east asians, central asians, north africans
>>7980007
May I ask what school? Your research sounds fucking awesome, I'm pursuing a bachelors in biochemistry at a state school with a 3.7 GPA and I'm very interested in PhD programs.
>>7979860
Long carbon tube nanofiber production.
It would revolutionize all aspects of engineering and allow relatively cheap interplanetary space travel.
>>7980007
keep up the good work brah
>>7980172
>aryan
So Indian?
it seems like such a small step from electronic transistors to photonic switches, but the machines we will be able to build with this new the technique will be astonishing I promise you.
>>7979860
pic source
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48029377@N04/
Pretty cool stuff.
>which one, if discovered, is more likely to be the biggest breakthrough for the human race?
The last biggest breakthrough that affected human kind in a massive way was ammonia-based high nitrogen fertilizer, thanks to that Nazi mustard gas guy Fritz Haber. Unfortunately, if paved the way for billions of human beings to be born and fed, polluting the world faster than it had ever been. It was the nuclear bomb of agricultural and social change with results far more devastating. We currently are not developing infrastructure and education fast enough to cope with this amount of people. Population growth should have been far slower.
The biggest thing that can alter humanity that is being worked on now, is cryogenics. When cryogenics is finally cracked, it will enable ultra long term space travel. Meaning we can kick off the planet all the extra people.
>>7980007
>He made it from a 2.7
Gratz bro living the dream
>>7979860
If you asked me what was the biggest breakthrough for the human race being worked on 30 years ago I wouldn't even know what to tell you.
What was the biggest breakthrough being worked on in 1986?
>>7980416
kek, AI is gonna be the biggest letdown for the Nth time in the last 50 years. Wake me up when Google makes a speech recognition that's not more humorous than useful in the first place.
Nuclear fusion is a big if, I want it to happen but I wouldn't bank on it.
>>7979919
>This also makes me wonder why everyone here shits on cs majors.
As a CS major, it's because AI (assuming he was talking about "strong" AI) won't come out of what most CS folks consider AI. Computational Neuroscience is where it's at. CS AI academics stress that "strong AI isn't a thing and probably never will be" because they're too busy solving Go or something.
Gender studies are the obvious future of humanity. How else will we categorize the new variations of humans popping forth each day on Tumblr?
>>7980486
>Nuclear fusion is a big if
That was the whole point of this thread
Nuclear Fusion would revolutionise the world as we know it. Energy would be limitless and we could abandon carbon heavy fossil fuels etc to ensure the sustainable future of planet Earth, not to mention Fusion powered spacecraft
>>7979860
Proper band gaps for graphene transistors,
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep12238
>>7979872
super agi for sure
>>7979874
Drama queens lose their audience and dies out. Humanity saved.
>>7980240
>Indian?
Quite a few are surprised when they hear why Iran got its name...
>>7980400
>What was the biggest breakthrough being worked on in 1986?
That was high temperature superconductivity. Bednortz and Müller got the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery the year after and the research field simply exploded into activity. Just look up the "Woodstock of Physics". It was a crazy time. Then it kind of fell down.
Now it looks like high temperature superconductivity is coming up again.
Also cold fusion. Now that is a field that truly came off badly.
>>7979860
My guess is genetic engineering. CRISPR Cas9 is really causing a lot of excitement.
>>7979872
I second AI. With AI will come superintelligence and after that will come everything else.
It's not a question of how, it's a question of when and how we are going to befriend it
