It took 3,000 years from the appearance of smallpox in the world to the development of a vaccine. It took 13 years for AIDS, 5 years for Ebola, and just 4 months for COVID-19. Seven days after the COVID-19 outbreak was reported to the WHO, all of the viral DNA sequences were identified. The rapid development of an mRNA vaccine in such a short timeframe has never been achieved in human history. This demonstrates how remarkable progress in biology and biotechnology has become. Similarly, the pace of wealth creation and economic growth has also sped up. It is a recent phenomenon in the long history of human life that we now measure time in seconds. We need to understand what kind of world we are living in right now. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
The tallest mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars, towering about three times higher than Mt. Everest. Its area, covering 295,000 ㎢, surpasses the size of the Korean Peninsula (220,850 ㎢) and is nearly equivalent to that of France or Arizona. While Olympus Mons has a greater height than any mountain on Earth, its vast area results in an average slope of only 5 degrees. As a result, hikers who ascend Olympus Mons often feel as if they are traversing a flat plain. For humans, the steepness of a climb matters more than its height. For example, ascending a steeper 5 m pole can be more challenging than gradually scaling a 500 m mountain. In life, choosing the right slope to climb is often more crucial than focusing solely on the height reached, whether going uphill or downhill. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”