this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023

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What were some good things humans achieved in 2023? (lemmy.eco.br)

submitted 11 months ago by Phen@lemmy.eco.br to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Anything exciting going on in your field of work this year? Or breakthroughs in science, new technologies developed, things like that.

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[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 88 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

The end-of-year numbers aren't in yet, but 2023 should be the year that wind and solar finally generate more electricity than coal here in the US.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/BTL/2023/02-genmix/article.php

For new generation projects coming online in 2023, 86% of the electricity is from non-fossil sources. The generation capacity that was retired in 2023 was all fossil based.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1304-august-21-2023-2023-non-fossil-fuel-sources-will-account-86-new

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 11 months ago

Wow that's pretty great.

I thought you guys were on par with Australia but in fact you're making us look bad - that's great.

[–] LennethAegis@kbin.social 79 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The first CRISPR gene editing treatment for sickle cell disease was approved. An amazing start to what I hope is a future of cures for various genetic diseases.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-approves-cure-sickle-cell-disease-first-treatment-use-gene-editing-rcna127979

[–] runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 11 months ago

The FDA also approved the world's first RSV vaccine. If you've noticed a lot of ad-campaigns for it this year, that's why.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-respiratory-syncytial-virus-rsv-vaccine

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 54 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Dracunculiasis (disease caused by Guinea worm infection in humans) is almost eradicated. We hit a new all-time low for known cases: 13 last year, and now only 3 in the first half of 2023.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7245a4.htm

https://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html

[–] AFLYINTOASTER@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

LFG Humanity! We fuckin WIN THESE go TEAM

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 51 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Humanity was able to experience Baldur's Gate 3.

[–] M137@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

More importantly, IMO: The Talos Principle 2

[–] EightLeggedFreak@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

It snuck up on me. I love the first game, completed it and the dlc 100%. The first time I heard anything about the sequel was less than a week before launch. I broke the sacred code and preordered. I don't have much time to play, but I'm making my way through the gate puzzles now.

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've just started it and my party died basically right after getting on land to those brain creatures.

I'm loving it.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I almost died there too on my first playthrough. Those things are tough when you're level one!

[–] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 33 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Honestly, AI has been helping me a lot as a student and someone that just likes to research stuff. It's development over the last year has been incredible.

[–] themurphy@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It has made my work life much easier too, and I have coded stuff that automated my job without knowing anything about code.

It's incredible.

[–] Wiggums@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (4 children)

what kind of work do you do that it's helped in?

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[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Well I work in cybersecurity so everyday is a new year

[–] them@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Is this a joke about every day being a 0-day?

[–] hashferret@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm so tired.

[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

some bro, same

[–] TotallyHuman@lemmy.ca 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We started deploying malaria vaccines!

[–] Newguy@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Right on!

[–] jlow@beehaw.org 20 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I have been really appreciating open source software this year. I always preferred FOSS over the alternatives (Firefox, Thunderbird, Libre Office etc) but I tried to use it for as much as I could this year, even professionally.

Haven't bootet into my Windows partition with Adobe Cloud for months now, it's almost exclusively Inkscpape, Scribus, Blender and Krita on Fedora and I love it! I'm also slowly, slowly getting into Godot which seems like another piece of amazing software.

Sure there are some (very) rough edges here and there and I will have fire up Illustrator or Unity (🤢) at some point when clients demand it but I'm pretty amazed at how well it's going.

Welp, sending this is totally gonna jinx it but whatevs 😘

[–] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

2023 was my personal 'year of the Linux desktop' I barely knew anything about FOSS up until 2018 maybe?, And the only reason I used Firefox was because I had been using it since 2010 and didn't wanna change.

Now I'm EXTREMELY grateful for FOSS software and use it over non-free alternatives any chance I get.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 5 points 11 months ago

Godot is definitely a major highlight. I would love to start using it, but I have too many other things to learn first

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago

The other day I was trying to get an empty vr project to run in unity. After half a day I just gave up. There's just so many options and packages and license agreements. I'm gonna switch to Godot and Steam index. Even if it's a lot of work I know I can share it with others.

[–] macattack@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This was yesterday: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a35kp/scientists-have-reported-a-breakthrough-in-understanding-whale-language

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 11 months ago

They could have just consulted Dory.

[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

John Green and Nerdfighteria was able to pressure Johnson and Johnson to give millions access to life saving tuberculosis medication

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I love how war-driven John Green is against tuberculosis

[–] Jaamulberry@beehaw.org 17 points 11 months ago

Maybe not a breakthrough compared to some of the other comments but home assistant got local voice control this year. For the price of a raspberry pi and a 13 dollar microphone you can have a completely local home automation system controlled by your voice. You can even hook it up to a LLM like chat gpt if you want via a different phrase to do some fun party tricks

[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

There was a breakthrough in cat medicine research that is showing promising results in doubling the lifespan of cats.

Edit: Sorry for leaving y'all in suspense, I didn't remember exactly what it was at the time of commenting, but I found it https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/features/z1304_00039.html

[–] TEC_XX@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Please elaborate/link, I'd be very interested to read about this.

[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/features/z1304_00039.html

[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm piling up here, with the same request, link OP!

[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/features/z1304_00039.html

[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So it prolonges lifespan in cats with kidney disease.

Good for the cats but it's not prolonging a healthy cats lifespan it seems.

[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Most cats do die of kidney related issues, so by addressing that very common cause of death with cats, you're effectively doubling the average lifespan still.