I’m compiling a series of lists, and providing links, to show what we as humans have accomplished in this the year 2016.  If you are anything like me, you are probably tired of hearing only politics in your news feeds.  Who decided that politics were the only bits of news that were fit to print?  That must have been yet another memo I missed while growing up.  This is meant to only be for illustrating purposes and by no means meant to be a complete and definitive list.  As of this writing, we still have two and a half months left in this year.

A few items that caught my attention from an article on listverse.com, 1) SpaceX vertically landed several rockets, 2) brain implants have allowed a quadriplegic to move his fingers, 3) stem cell therapies have allowed stroke victims to walk again,  4)scientists have discovered how to turn captured carbon dioxide emissions into stone, and  5) extremely long term data storage methods have been discovered.

6) Heat resistant ceramics can now be 3 D printed, 7) an enzyme that prevents sugar being stored as fat was discovered by scientists at the University of Montreal, 8) light activated nanoparticles at are able to kill anti biotic resistant bacteria was demonstrated at the University of Colorado, 9) scientists have shown that graphene can be safely used on neurons, which could lead to better brain implants, 10), scientists have proven T-cells can be used to treat cancer.  This short list was provided courtesy of hrl.com, eurekalert.org, colorado.edu, phys.org, and sciencealert.com.

11)  Scientists in United Kingdom have been given approval by regulators to modify human embryos using techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9, 12) Scientists in Germany have made breakthroughs in fusion energy generation, 13) Stem cell therapy reverses age related osteoporosis in mice, 14) scientists in Germany have determined certain mutated genes can safeguard against heart attacks, 15) Renewable energy surges to record levels around the world.

I’m trying to cut this list short.  I plan on making several entries to this blog like this between now and the end of the year.  Unlike some of my previous blog entries, I am providing links to the articles announcing these breakthroughs. What I have wrote has been made possible by google searches and wikipedia links to original articles.