The Secret is Protein

Nothing changes.  Excerpt from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (1963):

"The trouble with the world was," she continued hesitatingly, "that people were still superstitious instead of scientific.  He said if everybody would study science, there wouldn't be all the trouble there was."

"He said science was going to discover the basic secret of life someday," the bartender put in.  He scratched his head and frowned.  "Didn't I read in the paper the other day where they'd finally found out what that was?"

"I missed that," I murmured.

"I saw that," said Sandra.  "About two days ago."

"That's right," said the bartender.

"What is the secret of life?" I asked.

"I forget," said Sandra.

"Protein," the bartender declared.  "They found out something about protein."

"Yeah," said Sandra, "that's it."