I suspect we're going to see more of this sort of 'discovery' at this point. We have done a lot of the fundamental research but haven't puzzled out all of the implications or applications yet. Your description is sort of reminiscent of a recipe. All the ingredients have been there for a long time, but the mix is important.
You may know what eggs and wheat and milk and butter are but if you've never seen a pancake before then boy have I got some good news for you. We can talk about croissant later once the buzz wears off.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but this looks like a bog-standard interview-style question. It wouldn't be unusual to ask a candidate to "invent" and implement both data structures in a 45 minute session.
Not saying up this sort of thing makes for a good interview, just saying it's a cute little problem that has probably been solved a thousand times by a thousand different people.
You may know what eggs and wheat and milk and butter are but if you've never seen a pancake before then boy have I got some good news for you. We can talk about croissant later once the buzz wears off.