173: Ouroborous Quine

This is the members only edition of Future Crunch, a weekly roundup of good news, mindblowing science, and the best bits of the internet (not necessarily in that order). One third of your subscription fee goes to charity.

Give a damn

This is pretty unusual, as it comes just a week after our last donation. As you've probably heard by now though, women's reproductive rights in the United States just got dealt a devastating blow by the country's Supreme Court. Appalled isn't even the right word.

As a general rule we don't make donations in rich nations - the money goes a lot further in poorer countries. We're making an exception in this case though. The Brigid Alliance provides travel, food, lodging, child care and other logistical support for people seeking abortions. No matter where someone is (red state or blue state), they find a way to get them to where they need to be.

They're currently helping around 125 women a month, at an average cost of $1,250/client. We're sending them $5,000, so they can help four more. It's a drop in the ocean, we know. But we feel like we have to do something. Thanks for making it possible. This is a hard one to stomach. Our thoughts are with all of those affected by this decision.

Good news you probably didn't hear about

Equatorial Guinea has successfully eliminated human African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness. Global public health efforts over the past decade have drastically reduced cases by 95% with Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Uganda recently eliminating the disease as well. WHO

Voters in Kazakhstan have overwhelmingly approved constitutional reforms for a 'New Kazakhstan' that will dismantle the super-presidential system that has reigned for three decades. Over half the voting population participated in the referendum and 77.17% backed the reform. DW

A step in the right direction for LGBTQI+ rights in Tokyo with local authorities recognising same-sex partnerships, making it easier for couples to access local services. While 100 municipalities in Japan now recognise same-sex partnerships, it's still the only G-7 nation yet to legalise same-sex marriage or civil unions. Bloomberg

Colombia has passed a landmark road safety law that will help prevent thousands of road crashes, the country’s second largest killer of people aged 10-45 years old. The new law will upgrade vehicle safety standards, infrastructure, speed limits and licensing to meet global recommendations. WHO

This crucial new law should help save thousands of lives. It is a major step forwards for Colombia in setting up the robust legislative framework that we need to ensure safe mobility for everyone, and establishing a proven, life-saving safe systems approach to road safety.
Gina Tambini, WHO-PAHO

Also, did you know that the rate of road deaths has been falling steadily in the OECD for the last few decades? All 38 member states have steadily reduced their rates of accidents and fatalities since the 1970s, except for one (no prizes for guessing who). OECD

Despite a recent surge of Covid cases in America, thanks to an ultra-contagious set of new Omicron variants, the death rate has remained one-third lower than it was last summer and one-quarter lower than last December. Most Americans now carry some immune protection from vaccines, past infection, or both. NYT

The global fertility rate - the average number of children per women - has been steadily declining since the 1970s. The reasons? Women's empowerment in education and the workforce, lower child mortality and the increased cost of raising children. WEF

The only home we've ever known

China is tightening its environmental regulations, with a new ban on new steel, coking, oil refining, cement, and glass projects in already polluted areas. The country is also aiming for electric vehicles to make up 50% of total sales by 2030 and is prioritising the development of biomass, geothermal or solar energy for heating. Reuters

The Cofán community in the Ecuadorian Amazon have successfully saved 32,000 hectares of their ancestral land from 52 mining projects after winning a series of landmark cases. The community established Ecuador's first indigenous guard to defend their land in 2017 and the government must now consult them before greenlighting any proposals that threaten their way of life. Long Reads

The Kawawana conservation area in Senegal was created a decade ago by a group of Indigenous Jola fishers. Today, it's entirely governed, managed and maintained by local communities, who have succeeded in restoring an area where biodiversity had all but disappeared. There are now twice as many fish species, and the reserve has recently been expanded to 20,000 hectares. Mongabay

One in five councils in the UK have now launched rewilding schemes or are planning to do so. Councils are among the largest landowners in the country, and their participation plays a significant role in the current push to rewild 5% of the land. Not bad for a movement that's only a few years old. Guardian

A ban on bullfighting in Mexico City has been extended indefinitely, signalling the end of the 500 year tradition in the country. Since 2013 the states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Guerrero, Coahuila and Quintana Roohave have all banned bull fights - this however, is the death knell for the 'sport.' ABC

Canada is banning the manufacturing and import of a number of single-use plastics including checkout bags, utensils, food-service products, ring carriers, stir sticks, and straws. The ban will save 15 billion bags per year, and prevent 16 million straws a day ending up in landfill. Sales will be prohibited from December 2023. WaPo

The European Commission has tabled a new Nature Restoration Law to repair 80% of impacted habitats and restore all ecosystems, from forest and agricultural land to marine, freshwater, and urban areas by 2050. It’s the first-ever legislation to explicitly target the restoration of Europe’s nature.

In the past 35 years, farmers in Niger, the least developed country in the world, have added a staggering 200 million trees across 12 million acres of arid land without planting a single sapling. Local farmers let nature take the lead, allowing cut trees to regrow in their fields rather than clear them. As a result, soils in the area are more fertile and crop yields are up. Nat Geo

Since its establishment in 2001, the International Dark Sky Association has recognized more than 190 sites, protecting over 110,000 km² of dark places around the globe, including dark sky reserves, communities, islands and sanctuaries. As the benefits of dark skies become better known, many more rural areas are now seeking recognition. BBC

Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it

Japan is ending the financing of coal projects in Bangladesh and Indonesia. This is a critically important move. Almost all the new coal plants built across South and southeast Asia in the last decade have relied on massive capital subsidies from Japan, Korea and China. Great to see Japan finally implementing their no new coal financing pledge of 2020. Bloomberg

The global pipeline of offshore wind has almost doubled in the past 12 months from 429 GW a year ago to 846 GW today. Absolutely staggering growth. China has the biggest pipeline at 98 GW, the UK is in second place at 91 GW (up from 55 GW a year ago) the US is third with 80GW, and Germany is fourth at 57 GW. Renewable UK

Since the start of 2021, $37 billion of climate venture capital has been announced. Around $10 billion has already been committed which means there’s still around $20 billion in the tank to fuel climate tech innovation. In other words, there's more than enough capital in the market to stay warm through a cold snap. CTVC

Canadians looking to make their home more energy efficient and environmentally friendly can now get an interest-free loan of up to $40,000 from the federal government. Last Friday, the scheme opened to eligible people planning green upgrades to their property. C'mon Straya. Storeys

A new report looking at the cost of ownership of electric and diesel trucks in Europe has shown that electric trucks have already reached cost parity in six cities: Berlin, Paris, Rome, London, Warsaw, and Amsterdam. That's way ahead of predictions, and yet another example of how the energy crisis is speeding up decarbonization across the continent. RAP

The notorious lentil-eating, greenie snowflakes at the Texas Department of Transportation are planning to add enough charging stations throughout the state to support a million EVs in the next five years, starting with the main transportation corridors, and then moving to rural areas. The plan is to have a charging station every 50 miles along most interstate routes. Tribune

Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD is selling cars at such a furious pace it's become the second biggest carmaker in China. Sales have surged almost 350% to more than half a million during the first five months of 2022. We've said it before, we'll say it again. EVs are coming far quicker than even the most optimistic forecasts predicted. Asia Financial

Ferrari says three out of every five vehicles sold will be either electric or hybrid within the next four years, and 80% of it cars will be electrified by 2030. CEO Benedetto Vigna: "not only it is required by emissions regulations, but most importantly, we believe we can use the electric engine to enhance the performance of our cars." Forbes

Indistinguishable from magic

Australian scientists have created the world's first-ever quantum computer circuit, made from 10 carbon-based quantum dots embedded in silicon, with six metallic gates that control the flow of electrons. The landmark achievement has been nine years in the making. "This is the most exciting discovery of my career." New Atlas

Engineers in Canada have invented a new kind of 3D printing based on sound. Known as direct sound printing, it sends focused pulses of ultrasound through resin, creating microscopic bubbles which heat up to 14,727 ºC, and pressurize to over 14,504 psi in picoseconds, causing the resin to solidify at the exact location of the bubble. New Atlas

Blood pressure monitoring could soon get a lot less obtrusive thanks to a new, ultra-thin, lightweight 'electronic tattoo' developed by researchers in Texas. Using graphene as the electronic component, the device can monitor arterial blood pressure for more than five hours, ten times longer than any previous reported studies. Nerdist

The results from one of the longest-running human trials (which started in 2019) using CRISPR technology to treat a pair of rare genetic blood diseases have shown that out of 75 patients, 73 have essentially been cured of their disease and don't require further therapy. The remaining two patients were almost cured. New Atlas

Doctors in Australia have begun clinical trials of the first ever cancer drug designed by a computer. If it works, it paves the way for a new class of drugs based on computational biology. “We show the computer a million hands and a million gloves that fit them. Eventually, we showed it a hand for which there is no glove, and tasked the algorithm with creating a precise glove." Haaretz

A European team of engineers, physicists, neurosurgeons, biologists and immunologists have joined forces to design what they say is the world’s fifth new form of cancer treatment after surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy. Say hello to photo-immunotherapy, which uses light to wipe out cancer cells. Guardian

The information superhighway

It's been almost a year since Leah Ginnivan's last update, and it's been well worth the wait. Her posts are pretty much guaranteed inclusion in this newsletter, and this one's no exception. "I tend to think of growth in the aftermath of pain as not subtracting from it, but adding to and enriching an understanding of the world, pushing out the parameters of what we can think and feel in new directions.

Machine sentience is boring, and there's no ghost in that machine, even if the AI-designed magazine covers are pretty nifty, and one of the godfathers of deep learning has a new idea for a fresh path for AI. You want to know what's really cool though? An Ouroborous quine - 128 Turing complete languages eating their own tail.

Beautiful essay from Anisa George on cicadas, the passing of time, nature's cycles, and the steady drumbeat (no matter how strange the rhythm) of life and death. "We had joined the band, who had joined the chorus, and by joining, we had become the sound." Emergence

Intelligence isn't just for humans.

Cannot express enough how much we love Thelma Lutun and Rebecca Solnit's Not Too Late climate project, which ditches the circular spats about destiny and instead turns to the real, immediate power we have to change probabilities, and shift our fates.

As a young kid, Gwendal Uguen was fascinated by the Aztec Pantheon. However, Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were the only gods he could identify, while he could name dozens of Greek, Egyptian or Norse Gods. So he decided to solve that, by collecting and restoring illustrations of more than a hundred Aztec gods. Amazing. The Pudding

Humankind

Forest for trees

Meet Hikmet Kaya, a 78 year old retired forest technician in Turkey who has dedicated 41 years of his life to planting 30 million saplings on a barren hill in the town of Sinop, transforming it into a forest.

Hikmet’s mission started in 1978 when he became Head of Afforestation in Sinop’s Boyabat district. A man of  vision, Hikmet decided to reforest a 10,000ha stretch of barren land that overlooked the town. Realistic about the work ahead , Hikmet recruited specialised teams and volunteers from the local community to help. During his 25 years of service in the forestry department, he never stopped planting saplings and continued his mission after he retired in 2002.

Over the decades, Hikmet’s 30 million seedlings have grown into trees and today his forest is inhabited by foxes, boars, rabbits, and bears. The forest of Boyabat has also become a green oasis for locals, many of whom are not old enough to remember how inhospitable the landscape was at the beginning of Hikmet’s journey.

Hikmet says the forest is his greatest source of pride and is urging other people in Turkey to protect forest areas and plant more trees, which he calls the future of the country. “This kind of effort requires sacrifice, labour, and love. Love for your nation and beyond that a love for all humanity.”

That's it's for this edition. We'll see you next week. Whew.

Much love,

Gus, Amy and the rest of the team