10 2001 Photo credit: Sean Adair/Reuters/CORBIS 2001 will always be remembered for some of the most crucial scientific breakthroughs of our time. The biggest one was the sequencing and publishing of a working draft of the human genome (all the genetic information in a cell), which completely transformed our understanding of the human body and its place in evolution. It was an unprecedented effort by researchers around the world to understand our shared roots, and it ended up changing medicine forever. However, the most pivotal event of 2001 remains the terrorist attacks in New York, colloquially known as “the 9/11 attacks.” Although some people consider that matter to be over with Osama bin Laden ’s death, its effects are actually still all around us. If we include the Iraq invasion in 2003, the “War on Terror” laid the roots for most (if not all) of the region’s disputes today. Popular support for ISIS directly stemmed from the sectarian ...