World's best innovations in 50 years

The past 50 years have seen several path-breaking, and some of them life-saving, innovations.

Here we present 15 most influential innovations in the past five decades, according to CNBC.

The idea of self-service in retail banking developed through independent and simultaneous efforts in Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

DNA profiling is a technique employed by forensic scientists to assist in the identification of individuals by their respectiveDNA profiles.

DNA profiles are encrypted sets of numbers that reflect a person's DNA makeup, which can also be used as the person's identifier.

Knowledge of DNA sequences has become indispensable for basic biological research, other research branches utilising DNA sequencing, and in numerous applied fields such as diagnostic, biotechnology, forensic biology and biological systematics.

An electric car is an automobile which is propelled by electric motor(s), using electrical energy stored in batteries or another energy storage device.

Electric cars have several potential benefits as compared to conventional internal combustion automobiles that include a significant reduction of urban air pollution as they do not emit harmful tailpipe pollutants from the onboard source of power at the point of operation.

An optical fibre is a flexible, transparent fibre made of a pure glass (silica) not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fibre.

The 1980s bred major developments in surgery, including this one. The first minimally invasive surgery was performed in 1987, although robots were first to perform biopsies as early as 1985, according to CNBC.

Scientists first discovered the photovoltaic effect in the 1800s, while using solar power to produce steam. The modern solar energy movement started as a response to the oil embargo and energy crisis of the 1970s, according to CNBC.

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