Extraordinary accomplishments do happen.  Too often, they go unreported or unremarked.  If you ever feel gloomy with current events, take a moment to look at these:

The first animal ever to be resurrected from extinction was the Pyrenean ibex.  Unfortunately, I use the past-tense because the cloned kids died shortly after birth.  But, if anyone cares enough, with some practice on the cloning and an elegant technique to create a male fetus from the female cells scientists have, the ibex can come back.

Ten plagues, as horrible as any in the Bible, today rarely kill people in developed countries:  Smallpox, diphtheria, rheumatic fever, bubonic plague, polio, measles, scurvy, tuberculosis, and a collection of ills resulting in death from childbirth and infant mortality.  Only smallpox is extinct in the wild, but polio may join it in the foreseeable future.

Transubstantiation may sound New Age-y, but it refers to genetic engineering of bacteria to produce medicines and renewable raw materials.  These tank-based processes should be easier to control and more immediately acceptable than GMO foods.  They offer new solutions to today’s problems.

If you prefer something more esoteric, consider cosmology.  In particular, we know the universe is expanding and that the rate of expansion is accelerating.  The reason why is unknown, but that doesn’t discourage me:  Much of reality is mysterious.  We all know, for example, if you drop a ball, it will fall to Earth.  This seems so intuitively obvious and we can describe it so precisely with mathematics.  It is easy to forget that no one actually knows why that ball falls.

Every one of these achievements opens a door to even greater discoveries.  The future holds endless opportunity.