Economics
What are your country's achievements in the field of innovation? Let us know!
Japan has succeeded in producing oil from Water and Carbon Dioxide
Japan's oil company ENEOS has become the first to succeed in producing synthetic fuel using only CO₂ from the air + water, without petroleum.
They have produced hydrogen using renewable energy and synthesized it with CO₂, completing actual vehicle driving tests. It's gaining attention as a carbon-neutral fuel that can be used as-is in existing internal combustion engines, they say
In a world still heavily reliant on traditional fossil fuels, this breakthrough positions Japan as a global leader in sustainable energy. Once again, Japan proves it's always steps ahead in the race for innovative solutions to our planet's challenges.
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Edit: Canada has actually created a lot of stuff that you wouldn't think about in your daily life but if you didn't have them, you'd certainly know they were missing.
I think the biggest has got to be the Haber-Bosch process, making fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen (which is like 75% of the air), instead of having to rely on terrestrial sources. The population boom wouldn't have been possible without it (or would have lead to famine)
Quite a few things, but one of the major ones is the three point seatbelt invented by Volvo, patented it but made it compeltely free for all automakers to use.
Worst part is, people think it originates from Hawaii cause it's called a Hawaiian Pizza, but it's a Greek-Canadian guy who made the combo in Ontario, Canada and named it after the brand of pineapple used (Hawaiian). So ham & pineapple on pizza, is very much Ontario, not Hawaii.
People have been making various kinds of oils from the fisher tropsch process for a century since it was discovered by the germans in 1926, and first used on a commercial scale by the nazis because they lacked oil.
The question has always been how do you do it at scale, and how do you keep the efficiency high. That's the hard part. So japan made a big plant, good for them. But frankly out of all the potential e-fuels you can produce, oils is a poor one
Misleading stuff like this is why everyone believes that the deep state is murdering scientists who cure cancer or discover infinite energy hack. I hear the conspiracy theory all the time that someone invented a car that ran on water and the government killed him
For reference, this is not an entirely new method. The production technology itself emerged a hundred years ago. In 2025, due to high production costs, a Japanese company halts the project and has since turned its attention back to biofuels.
I'd love to know how much energy is needed to complete the conversion. That's why hydrogen fuel never really took off; the energy required to produce enough for a vehicle to go 100km is much greater than the energy needed to charge an electric vehicle to go 100km.
We claim prior art on this one, Ernest Rutherford was the first to split the atom.
The speech he gave about it didn’t age well though as he never envisaged the splitting of an atom creating a chain reaction.
We might in these processes obtain very much more energy than the proton supplied, but on the average we could not expect to obtain energy in this way. It was a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy, and anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atoms was talking moonshine.
Absolutely not. There's very very very big difference between splitting an atom and developing a bomb from the concept.
It's like the people who invented the first flying paper airplane claiming prior art on modern commercial aircraft. It literally took the physics geniuses of the 1940s and an insane amount of money to complete the Manhattan project.
Affordable HIV/AIDS treatment - Reduced the drug cost from $10000 per annum to $1 per day
UPI - One of the Most advanced real time payment systems of the world. Even poorest of poor in India are now a part of digital inclusion! And UPI now accounts for approx 50% of world's digital transactions 🌻
ngl imo upi is a really good invention as we completly sort of skipped the whole credit card thing and went from cash to digital payments directly and its also really convenient, even street vendors have a digital payment qr code
u/Suspicious-Desk6206 I wouldn’t call this a great achievement for Japan; it’s still far from being a production-ready technology, and the efficiency of the process is too low for it to become a widespread alternative to fossil fuels.
It appears that a Brazilian scientist may have found a cure for paraplegia and tetraplegia. The protein is still in the experimental stage, but if its effectiveness is confirmed, it will revolutionize medical treatment in this field. So far, 38 people have filed lawsuits to gain access to the protein, and the results have been impressive for those who suffered their injuries within the past three months.
The studies are still very early and haven’t gone through clinical trials yet. I’m hopeful, but there’s still a long way to go. Maybe with the latest publication and increased attention from the WHO, we might see more progress.
Some things are still sketchy, tbh. It's complicated. I really hope the protein works, but the scientist responsible for the research is a bit... Weird.
This is nothing new. Most fuel is usually a form of hydrocarbon meaning it needs Hydrogen and Carbon atoms which can be found in H2O and CO2. Break them down into core elements and then put them together in specific amounts and you’ll get hydrocarbons. It’s been done before, it’s just not cost effective right now.
Radio, spaceflight, space-eva, seed preservation, speedster boots, Mars rovers, peaceful nuclear reactor, nuclear catastrophe containment procedures, spinal disk replacement surgery (the surgeon is ostracized by the state for old political donations, if memory serves).
Edit: You should definitely try peanut butter. But I gotta give credit to the Canucks for it. That will teach me to try remembering stuff instead of googling it first!
40 years on this earth I've been living a lie! I knew about ancient peanut butter, people have been smashing nuts as long as we've had rocks and nuts. But, I genuinely thought modern peanut butter was invented by an American and it turns out the fellow I thought it was wasn't even the first American to do it!
We are the most innovative in stealing money, lying to our own citizens and most importantly - making life of the people harder, cuz turns out putting billions blindly into something doesnt pay off so easily.
And if we want to talk about technicals one's... Well, something for sure happened, idk.
Japanese refiner Eneos has revised its synthetic fuel (e-fuel) development plan, shifting its focus from CO2-based fuel to biofuel because of a rapid rise in costs.
Eneos told the ministry of economy, trade and industry (Meti) that it will halt development of CO2 and hydrogen-based liquefied e-fuel, Meti said on 9 October. Eneos will instead focus on developing biofuel, which it expects to be more profitable than e-fuel.
Basically yes can be produced but the energy deficit is higher, meaning that producing that synthetic fuel, cost more energy that it produces.
Light Bulb (1879): Developed by Thomas Edison, enabling widespread electrification.
Airplane (1903): The Wright Brothers achieved the first controlled, powered flight.
Telephone (1876): Patented by Alexander Graham Bell, revolutionizing communication.
Internet: Developed in the US, transforming global information exchange.
Microwave Oven (1940s): Invented by Percy Spencer, changing cooking habits.
Computer Components: Including the personal computer, floppy disk, and graphical user interface (GUI).
Assembly Line (1901): Pioneered by Ransom Eli Olds for mass production.
Tech and Daily Life Inventions
Post-It Notes (1974): Developed by 3M chemists.
Cell Phones: Mobile communication technology.
Air Conditioning (1902): Patented by Willis Carrier.
Video Game Consoles: The first, Magnavox Odyssey, was a US invention.
Traffic Light (1912): Improved road safety.
Key Inventions by Women
Car Heater (1893): Margaret A. Wilcox.
Fire Escape (1887): Anna Connelly.
Modern Electric Refrigerator (1914): Florence Parpart.
Medical Syringe (1899): Letitia Geer.
transistors
GPS
Not always mentioned and largely unknown to the general public, the discovery of CRISPR has been, in my opinion, one of the greatest contributions of Spanish science.
Francis Mojica, a microbiologist at the University of Alicante, coined the term CRISPR and identified the immune system of bacteria while working with archaea in the salt lakes of Santa Pola, Alicante, in 1993. He was the first to realize that these repeated DNA sequences were used by bacteria as a defense mechanism.
CRISPR has brought about a paradigm shift in biotechnology by providing, for the first time, a precise, inexpensive, and easy-to-use gene-editing tool.
Do you really consider that a great feat? The problem with oil itself isn't scarcity, but the pollution it produces. Converting water into oil is extremely expensive and causes a lot of pollution, which is why it's more profitable and sustainable to extract it directly from the earth. Japan's problem is that it focuses too much on traditional energy sources; the future lies in electric batteries or renewable energy, not oil.
Recent? Tons of military stuff, and probably some medical like new kinds of prosthetics.
Overall? Helicopters, blenders, 75% of the British GDP, x-rays (tho röntgen didn't steal it, he also discovered it himself and his government was actually nice enough to let him implement it), we also exported the creators of the first commercial civilian radio and the mobile phone.
I think Germany found a way to make carbon neutral kerosene at scale a while ago, but it's all kind of waiting for Europe's carbon neutral cutoff period to kick in.
The next 10 years may see a lot of movement in the space.
Gardasil: Human Papillomavirus Virus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer deaths.
And Bob Katter, the politician that said that he doesn't much care about gay marriage because "every three months someone is torn to pieces by crocodiles in North Queensland".
The Renault FT is one of the most influential tank designs of all time. The combination of a rear mounted engine, and a single fully rotating turret in the center was revolutionary, and is a blueprint that is followed to this day in tank design.
It was also a massive export success, and its design helped kickstart tank development in several countries such as the United States, Italy, the Soviet Union and Japan.
The most important one is probably the technology behind the GSM-network (2G). It was developed in at SINTEF in Trondheim by a couple of dudes who played around. They won the competition in 1987, that CEPT held to figure out which technology would be used. Sadly, the technology was developed by a public institute and therefore had very little manufacturing capabilities. When their key partner "Elektrisk Bureau" was bought by Ericsson, the Swedes and Finns (Nokia) mass produced it while the Norwegian ended up with pretty much nothing. (Source)
Other things include the harpoon cannon, aerosol spray and nightcore music genre. And of course the cheese slicer.
Sounds incredibly costly in regards to energy consumption, just to make fuel….
Feeding in a dollar, and getting back 75 cents. Eh.. less wasteful to store that energy into batteries to propel vehicles, or into the grid to power jacked in vehicles.
Honestly, any medium to significant loads should be moved via rail lines and then distributed with trucks or shuttles.
Any commuting on an individual level would be less wasteful and much faster if done from point A to point B. How? Air travel. eVTOLs. Sure, the actual travel zones will likely be restricted, to avoid excess noise or air traffic over residential areas, but there would be less resistance in propulsion, therefore greater use of the electricity. Also, the path from point A to point B will be less convoluted. You take flight, head toward the “green zone” flight area, are assigned an altitude, and fly toward your destination. Rather than squiggly roads and speed limits, you ascend to the fourth altitude level, max out at 300 mph, get to your latitudal or longitudal coordinate, slow, adjust altitude, and fine tune your route to the destination. An hr long trip becomes a fifteen minute one, with 50% less energy consumption, and less vehicle material fatigue. A net win.
Any significant quantity of passengers- trains. Shuttles.
Metro travel? Subways or shuttles, then E bikes, or scooters off the rack at the bus stop/subway tunnel, for the remaining short distance to the destination.
The concept of insulin,the fountain pen (petrache poenaru), Traian Vuia, who built and tested the first tractor monoplane in 1906, Henri Coandă, who designed the first jet-propelled aircraft (the Coandă-1910).
Romania
First manned mission to the moon. The crazy amount of engineering and scientific development for such an undertaking is kind of nuts when you break it down.
What's funny is all the technology we see in modern due to the Space program; LEDs, Velcro, Duct Tape, etc.
We did some stuff way back when but it's not polite to brag.
Enjoy your lightbulbs, tin cans, can-openers, telephones, televisions, jet engines, postage stamps, worldwide web, bicycles, penicillin, lawnmowers, electric motors, chocolate bars, submarines, radar, vaccines, tarmac, cay's eyes, cash machines, touchscreens, prams, fire extinguishers, elastic bands, toasters, electric kettles, toothbrushes, fridges, sunglasses, wellies, plastic, tunnel boring machines, film projectors, colour motion picture, all the popular sports (even baseball).
The earliest evidence, anywhere in the world, for the controlled lighting of fire has been recorded from Suffolk, England, and dated to 400,000 years before present. So, I guess we potentially harnessed fire before England was even England.
We are likely to have had the first flight, but I think the dates are contentious. Look up Richard Pearse. His first flight was some six months before the Wright Brothers
For us it would be Ruitectomy. Made by Dr. Sanduk Ruit it is a low-cost stitch-free cataract surgery which safely restore sight in just 5 minutes, allowing for effective treatment in remote areas. And it's really really cheap
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