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.
Good news you probably didn't hear about
Countries in southeast Asia have made substantial progress towards eliminating measles, with 5 out of 11 achieving elimination in the last two decades. Measles cases declined by 92% between 2002 and 2020, and the death rate decreased by 97% - saving an estimated 9.3 million lives during this period. WHO
Maternal mortality rates in Zimbabwe declined from 657 deaths per 100,000 births in 2007, to 217 per 100,000 births in 2019. Significant improvements in maternal, neonatal and child health as well as interventions to reduce HIV, malaria and TB are working. Egypt and South Africa have also seen declines. BMJ
A potential game-changer for malaria control, with trails of a new dual-insecticide bed net reducing cases by 45%-50%. Bed nets have been a powerful tool in malaria prevention for decades, but the rise of insecticide-resistant mosquitos have kept scientists on their toes, and they've had to keep innovating ahead of the disease. Gates Foundation
Togo has become the first country to eliminate four neglected tropical diseases: dracunculiasis, lymphatic filariasis, human African trypanosomiasis and trachoma. All four were eliminated in just eleven years. These diseases are symptoms of extreme poverty, and lifting their burden will lead to social and economic benefits. WHO
This is an outstanding achievement and a gift not only for the people of Togo today but for generations to come.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General
In its 75 years since independence, India has made astounding progress in public healthcare: eradicating both polio and smallpox, decreasing HIV and malaria, and reducing the infant mortality rate from a harrowing 200/1,000 births in the 1940s to just over 27 per 1,000 births today. Healthcare efforts have more than doubled average life expectancy from 32 years in 1947 to 70 years in 2022. Times Now
Fewer families in India are using prenatal testing to ensure the birth of sons rather than daughters. The imbalance of boys to girls peaked in 2011, with 111 boys per 100 girls. Government efforts to curb sex selection and cultural shifts over the past decade are starting to normalise the balance with 108 boys per 100 girls recorded in 2021. Pew
Singapore's controversial 377A law has been repealed, effectively decriminalizing homosexuality. While there is still a long way to go in fighting discrimination, the landmark decision marks a significant shift in attitude for a country where LGBTQ+ rights were completely taboo a few decades ago. BBC
Since 2009, LA non-profit Food Forward has rerouted 250 million pounds of food from landfills and delivered over a billion servings of fresh produce to food insecure communities. The organisation collects produce from wholesale recovery programs, and then distributes it to 350 hunger relief programs across 12 California counties, six other states, and two Tribal nations. Civil Eats
The only home we've ever known
Did you know that the Inflation Reduction Act contains the largest amount of funding for conservation in the history of the United States? Audubon
- $4 billion for drought resilience and water conservation in the American West.
- $2 billion for wildfire risk reduction, including funds for nature-based solutions like beavers, to restore natural hydrology and reconnect river systems.
- $450 million to help private landowners manage forests and to provide incentives to conserve more forest ecosystems.
- $220 million for tribal climate resilience and $550 million for disadvantaged communities to plan, design, and build water projects that create or improve reliable access to water.
- $2 billion for forest management to make national forests more resilient to climate change, and to provide important bird habitat and ecosystem services like water quality, flood control, and carbon storage.
- $1.5 billion in grants for urban and community forestry.
- Hundreds of millions of dollars for wetland conservation and restoration.
- $121 million for rebuilding and restoring parts of the National Wildlife Refuge System and state wildlife areas.
- $2 billion for forest management to make national forests more resilient to stressors like climate change, and provide important bird habitat and ecosystem services like water quality, flood control, and carbon storage.
- $2.6 billion dollars for coastal protection and restoration.
- $20 billion for voluntary conservation programs on private lands throughout the United States.
Not bad huh?
Two years ago, the US Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act, a bipartisan victory decades in the making. Since then, more than 220 repair projects across nine national parks from Alcatraz to Yosemite have been funded to upgrade trails and amenities, contributing $3.8 billion to economic output and creating over 36,000 jobs. NPCA
Florida has acquired nearly 20,000 acres of land for conservation, rounding off the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a recently designated network of connected lands that provide crucial habitat for wildlife including the red-cockaded woodpecker, grasshopper sparrow, sandhill crane, mottled duck, wood stork and crested caracara.
South Carolina is linking ecologically significant landscapes across its Hampton and Jasper counties to create a 12,000-acre stretch of protected land that's crucial habitat for the rare gopher tortoise. In New Mexico, a collaboration between private landowners, government, and conservationists has protected over 27,000 acres to conserve native grasslands and critical wildlife habitat.
In the 19th century, puffins were hunted to extinction on islands off the coast of Maine. In 1981, conservationists started the world’s first restoration of a seabird to habitats where humans had killed it off. Today, there are more than 1,300 pairs of puffins across several islands - the only state in the US where the bird breeds. EHN
A 30-year marine conservation effort in the Virgin Islands has helped recover the red hind, a species of grouper in the Caribbean. Fishing restrictions and seasonal closures of spawning sites have resulted in a 35% increase in average fish size and recovered the population to a sustainable benchmark. Cannon Beach Gazette
Indigenous communities are committed to a multi-generational clean-up of the Hanford nuclear site, one of the most contaminated landscapes in the United States. Tribal elders, who won’t live to see the site fully rehabilitated, are working with younger generations to pass on knowledge and keep their legacy alive. Guardian
131,900 ha of land in Queensland’s Cape York has been returned to its Traditional Owners, adding to the 3.85 million ha already owned and managed Indigenous communities in the region. The government has also issued up to $50,000 in multiple grants to protect areas of cultural and natural significance around Cape York. SBS
This is one of the most significant purchases in Queensland history – linking close to one million hectares of protected land that includes significant, undisturbed ecosystems and habitat.
Annastacia Palaszczuk, Premier of Queensland, Australia
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
California regulators have officially put in place a plan to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035. This is big. Not only is California the largest auto market in the United States, but more than a dozen other states typically follow its lead when setting standards. Officials in New York, Washington, Oregon & Rhode Island already say they're planning to implement similar regulations. CNN
Chinese solar manufacturers are either planning or have started construction on 340 GW of additional capacity as of June this year, buoyed by strong global demand and new mass-production technology. The beauty of this is that it keeps solar on its learning curve - aggressive investment into more capacity drives down prices, which leads to... more capacity. Nikkei
Scotland has begun producing energy from what will eventually be its largest offshore wind farm, as well as the deepest in the world attached to a seabed. Known as Seagreen, it will produce enough to power the equivalent of 1.6 million households once it becomes fully operational next year. Reuters
In the aftermath of the Inflation Reduction Act, analysts are now predicting 'staggering' amounts of clean energy coming online in the United States. Wind, solar and batteries account for over 95% of capacity in interconnection queues, and check out the new forecasts for coal plant retirements too. Ouch. S&P
One of the less-known benefits of the IRA is that it gives the US EPA more authority to regulate emissions. Firstly, it defines greenhouse gases as a form of air pollution (sorry Supreme Court), and secondly and perhaps more importantly, allows the EPA to pass stricter rules by tipping the cost-benefit scales even further in favour of clean energy. Atlantic
Solar installations in India rose by 59% in the first half of this year, to a record 7.2 GW, bringing the country's total installed capacity to 57 GW. "Even with mounting challenges from supply constraints and rising costs, India had its best quarter and first half ever for solar." Economic Times
Solar is now regularly outcompeting coal on the Australian grid in winter, and it's happening earlier every year. In the process, the country's coal fleet has been revealed as neither cheap nor reliable. Next big milestone should arrive in a few years, when wind and solar are producing 100% of grid demand at any one time. RE
Three more global insurance providers have ruled out support for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, bringing the total number to 11. The pipeline poses a threat not just to climate goals, but to ecosystems in east Africa too - so this move is significant, because it needs substantial levels of international insurance to proceed. StopEACOP
France has become the first country in the world to ban fossil fuel advertising. Under new rules, supermarkets cannot run ads for cheap petrol, for instance, and ads for natural gas will be banned too. Activists say it doesn't go far enough - but we would argue that the symbolism is really what matters here, showing that fossil fuels are heading the same way as big tobacco. Euronews
And finally, if you're still wondering what a heat pump is, this might help. Basically - they're magic.
Indistinguishable from magic
Two weeks ago, a Google scientist sat in a kitchen and typed in a command to a one-armed robot resembling a floor lamp. “I’m hungry,” he wrote. The robot promptly zoomed over to a countertop, gently picked up a bag of multigrain chips with a pincer, and wheeled back to offer up a snack. Large language models? Meet the robots. Wired
Remember the Internet of Things? It didn't go away, we just call it something different now. Chicago, for example, is now monitoring everything from air pollution and flooding, to rail crossings and pedestrian traffic via hundreds of sensors installed in its street lights. They're calling it a 'fitness tracker for the city.' Tech Review
German scientists have just carried out the first completely robot-supported microsurgical operations on humans. The machine reduces the surgeon’s hand movements by a factor of 20, making it possible to join up anatomical structures less than 0.3 mm in diameter, while an augmented reality headset translates the surgeon’s head movements, making complicated viewing angles possible. Munster
Most people by now have heard of the theory that trauma endures long after the immediate threat is gone, and can be transmitted to future generations via epigenetics. Evidence from research into Holocaust and 9/11 survivors bears this out - if you're curious about this subject, we'd highly recommend this piece by Rachel Yehuda in Scientific American.
Evolution is crazy. This chart shows everything we currently know about metabolism. Amazing that we've managed to figure this out in just one or two generations (high res version here).
Humans are crazy too. An artist named Michael Heizer has unveiled an astonishing 2.5 km long sculpture of dirt mounds, depressions, and concrete monoliths that toe the line between alien and primitive. This isn't really science or tech-related but we're including it because it's the closest thing we've seen to real sci-fi in a long time. Hopefully you can make it past the paywall for this. NYT
The information highway is still super
Imagine an entire article along the lines of our Humankind section, and you'll get a a taste for what this is. National Geographic spent five years on the road to find the unsung heroes knitting the social fabric back together in today’s America. These are the country's keepers of community. If you're feeling down about the USA, stop what you're doing right now and read this.
We're probably a little late to the party here, but loving the concept of scruffy hospitality: the idea that a welcoming spirit is far more important than an impressive meal or an artfully designed dinner table. People don't come over for food and glamour, they come over for company and conversation. Scruffy hosts take the pressure off, and allow us to share the wholeness of ourselves. Guardian
On the six month anniversary of the Russian invation of Ukraine, this reconstruction of the battle for Kyiv is in a league of its own. Memories are short - it's easy to forget that on the eve of the invasion hardly a single military analyst in the world gave them a fighting chance. WaPo
Modern discourse on what it means to be 'more than human' is dominated by technology and capital. A contrasting body of thought however, says human intelligence is just one form of a more universal phenomenon, an emergent flowering found throughout the evolutionary tree. It is among the tangled bramble of all life that our intelligence becomes intelligible, a gestalt rather than a particular trait. Real Life
This is an amazing piece from an American writer who taught English to refugees in Italy for many years. It's not just the story and the language (although they're wonderful), it's also the structure, which is so cleverly built around English grammar itself. Technically brilliant, and deeply satisfying on so many levels. Settle in, it's a long one. VRQ
Feels like the right time to re-post this, one of the greatest life advice essays of all time, by Paul Graham. Life is short.
Don't waste it on bullshit.
Humankind
It takes a village
Meet Dr Damaris Matoke-Muhi, a research scientist and mother of three in Kenya, who is leading the global fight against malaria.
The first born of eight children, Damaris had a remarkable talent for maths and science from a young age. Although members of her local community questioned the value of educating a girl, her father, a schoolteacher, was adamant his daughter finish school. When Damaris was offered a place at a university in India to study science, her father sold his cows and a plot of land to help pay for tuition.
As a student, Damaris struggled to live on the $50 her father sent her every three months. Unable to afford accommodation near campus, Damaris walked 25 kilometres, five days a week to attend class and barely ate enough to survive. “If I couldn’t eat a meal at a friend’s house, I would often go two days without eating.” Without complaint and despite the challenges, Damaris never missed a class.
She was 23 years old and studying for a master’s degree in biotechnology when her young brother Abel, also a gifted science student, died from malaria. His death marked a profound turning point for Damaris. For the first time she trusted her parent’s sacrifices were not wasted - she was going to use her education to help her country eliminate malaria.
Returning to Kenya, Damaris pursued a doctorate in molecular medicine while working full time as a research officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, where she is now the Principal Research Scientist. Damaris has now been on the frontline of fighting malaria for decades, in both the research lab and in villages, where she conducts regular screenings and works closely with local women to improve preventative measures.
Damaris believes women hold the key to preventing the disease at ground level and is passionate about encouraging more female leaders in science and healthcare. It will be Damaris’s network of female health workers who will soon administer the world’s first malaria vaccine to communities across Kenya.
Paying forward her father’s belief in her, Damaris has put her seven surviving siblings through university and is raising two young daughters, who both dream of pursuing a career in healthcare.
“If we’re serious about malaria elimination in Africa, women must help develop, design, deliver, and implement strategies. Once you impact and inspire one woman, you impact and inspire the whole community.”
Thanks for reading, and for your continued support. We're taking next week off, but will be back in action the week after that. Hang in there. We'll see you in a fortnight.
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the team
