182: Barreleye

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

A malaria vaccine with 'world-changing' potential has been developed by scientists at Oxford, who expect to roll it out next year after trials showed up to 80% protection from the world's deadly animal. A deal has already been reached to manufacture 100 million doses a year. The charity Malaria No More says it might mean children dying from malaria could end "in our lifetimes". BBC

2.4 million residents in Dhaka, Bangladesh have been protected against cholera thanks to the country’s largest ever cholera vaccination campaign that ran across June and July this year. The monumental public health feat involved 700 teams working across five hotspots to administer the vaccines in just six days. WHO

Iran is on the cusp of eradicating literacy, with the rate now surpassing 98%, a huge leap from just 48% in the 1970s. The country has also closed its literacy gender gap from 23% in 1976 to less than 6.1% in 2020. Meanwhile, government efforts in Cambodia have increased the literacy rate among adults from 77.6% in 2008 to 87.8% in 2020.

India’s ambitious Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to connect piped water to 192 million households by 2024, is over halfway to meeting its goal, having reached a 100 million homes. The initiative is already reaping huge benefits in public health, with a 66% decline in water-borne diseases in areas provided with clean drinking water. Hindustan Times

The Pan American Health Organization just launched a joint initiative with the United States to train 500,000 new public health workers throughout the region over the next five years. The program is designed specifically to ensure remote and marginalised communities have better access to health services.

Smoking in the United States has reached its lowest levels ever, with just 11% of people saying they now smoke cigarettes. Good news, because smoking is the cause of about 20% of all cancers, and lung cancer is the leading cause of all cancer deaths. The decline in smoking is one of the main reasons cancer deaths have fallen by 27% in the last two decades.

Japan’s roads are now among the safest in the world, recording less than 3,000 fatalities in 2021- a more than five fold decrease since the 1970s. The dramatic decline is attributed to the country’s innovative approach to public transport, including the world’s first bullet trains, no on-street parking in neighbourhoods and the introduction of microcars. Bloomberg

After years of advocacy, Vietnam has taken a big step forward in LGBTQ+ rights, with the government declaring that being gay, bisexual, or transgender is not a disease and urging practitioners to end discrimination in medical care. Meanwhile Canada has joined the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands in creating a national LGBTQ+ action plan, pledging $100 million to support community groups.

Historic legislation in Spain with the passing of the 'only yes means yes' law. Its the result of one woman's campaign after she was raped by five men during the 2016 bull-running festival in Pamplona. Under the new law, sexual consent must be affirmative and cannot be assumed by default or silence. Guardian

The tides of public opinion are shifting in America, with 66% of voters now supporting a woman's right to choose, up from 55% in March. Approval of interracial marriage continues to climb too. According to Gallup, it's reached a new high of 94% - up from just 4% when the  poll was first taken in 1958.

Attitudes can and do change, sometimes in less than a generation.

The only home we've ever known

Indonesia has pledged to increase its marine protected areas by from 284,000 km² to 325,000  km² by 2030. The country is home to some of the most diverse marine life on the planet, especially its corals and reef fish. By 2045, the government plans to triple coverage to 975,000 km². Mongabay

Following on from a story we featured in our last edition, 362,000 hectares of national park and freehold land in Queensland’s Cape York has been returned to its traditional owners, heralding a “new era” for the peninsula. Over the past 27 years the QLD government has handed back over 4.3m ha of land, an area the size of Switzerland. Guardian

Farmers and landowners across England are leading a ‘once in a generation’ landscape recovery scheme to revive biodiversity in 22 areas, while still producing food. Collectively, the project aims to restore nearly 700km of rivers across farmed and rural landscapes and revive 263 species including water vole, otter, pine marten, lapwing, great crested newt, European eel, and marsh fritillary. Guardian

The key is this is a collaboration with farmers. What I find really encouraging is farmers, landowners and environmental NGOs working together on solutions that work at a local landscape level so we can design something that’s fit for purpose and fit for the future.
Jake Fiennes, Conservation Director, Holkham Estate

In the past decade, Gabon has increased its elephant population by over a third to 95,000 animals. The success is attributed to tough penalties for poachers and smugglers and legislation to protect Gabon’s equatorial rainforest, which boasts the largest populations of gorillas and forest elephants in the world. Times

The Netherlands is at the forefront of pollinator conservation, creating insect hotels, rooftop gardens and 'honey highways' to save the country’s bees. The country’s National Pollinator Strategy consists of 120 initiatives in urban and agricultural regions, aiming to reduce the number of bee species showing a downward trend by 30% and increase those with an upward trend by 30% by 2023. RTBC

In 1986, the last remaining 22 Californian condors were captured from the wild in a drastic attempt to save them from rodenticide and environmental toxins. In this case, human intervention paid off. Thanks to the collaboration of government agencies, scientists, and indigenous tribes, 537 birds now soar over North America today, 334 of them in the wild. RTBC

New York’s waterways are the cleanest they’ve been in over a century and the animals are coming back. Significant numbers of humpback, fin and right whales have started appearing along with bottlenose dolphins, spinner and hammerhead sharks, seals, blue crabs, seahorses, and oysters which vanished decades ago. Economist

16 Indigenous communities in drought-stricken parts of Mexico have created over 579 water infrastructure projects, including absorption wells and water pans, to help manage and harvest water locally. Initiated by a handful of women in 2005, the projects are capturing enough water to regenerate soils for crops and boosting the return of wild fauna and flora. Mongabay

“A massive victory for the planet.” A South African court has banned Shell from searching for oil and gas reserves along the country’s Wild Coast. Conservation groups took the matter to court after the government renewed the company’s exploration rights in 2021. 6,000 km of coastline is now protected, which is good news for humpback whales that migrate to the waters each year to mate and rear calves. Euro News

Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it

One of the hallmarks of the global clean energy revolution is the consistent inability of most journalists to predict its speed. Case in point: the polysilicon sector is now betting on annual sales of 940GW of solar by 2025. That's 5.8% of global electricity demand, every year, or the equivalent of the world’s entire fleet of 438 nuclear plants every 20 months. Bloomberg

It's not just that journalists underestimate clean energy, it's that they consistently overestimate coal too. Remember the US coal surge last year? It's already finished. And in China, coal consumption fell for 12 straight months between June 2021 and June 2022, before ticking up in July and August due to extreme weather. Guess what people hear about? Carbon Brief

California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, just passed its most aggressive ever climate change legislation. Lawmakers approved a record $54 billion in climate spending and passed sweeping new restrictions on oil and gas drilling as well as a mandate that California stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2045. NYT

Europe has smashed all its solar records this summer, generating a record 12% of electricity between May and August, up from 9% during the same period last year. Those solar panels saved the continent €29bn in fossil gas imports. The numbers are astonishing - since 2018, Poland has increased solar generation by a factor of 26, and Finland and Hungary have seen five-fold increases. Ember

Global offshore wind is on a tear. Almost 7GW went into operation in the first half of this year, a close to five fold increase on last year. 33 offshore farms started operations, almost all of them in China, plus a few in Vietnam and Europe. China now has 24.9GW of installed capacity. Renew Biz

Europe's doing its best to catch up. Eight EU countries bordering the Baltic Sea have agreed to increase their offshore wind power generation capacity seven-fold by 2030 in order to reduce dependency on Russian energy. Chalk up another one for everyone's favourite climate hero in the Kremlin. Reuters

Excellent news: EV batteries are lasting far longer than predicted, meaning there's plenty of life after use as backup storage in big solar arrays. The big worry was that all the batteries would end up in landfill, but it now looks like the opposite problem is taking shape - there's more recycling capacity coming online than there is battery scrap available. Bloomberg

A total of $15 billion of investment into four US gigafactories has been announced in the last two months, enough to more than double the country's entire current production capacity. The announcements, from Panasonic, Honda and Toyota, will increase forecast US battery production capacity by 60% by 2025.

EV adoption in the US is happening for quicker than anyone predicted, with sales projections for 2030 more than doubling to 53%. Ford, for example, has seen a four-fold increase in EV sales, and cannot keep up with demand for its F-150 electric trucks, which are being sold, on average, eight days after hitting dealerships, the fastest for any Ford vehicle.

Volkswagen, the only legacy carmaker in the top 12 for global EV sales, has a new CEO, Oliver Blume. Here's what he says about the company's electrification plans. "I am a fan of e-mobility and I stand by this path. We will keep the current pace and, where possible, increase it." Reuters

As the world continues to be distracted by those who say it can't be done, Iceland is celebrating the first ever commercial passenger flight by an electric aircraft.

Indistinguishable from magic

The FT has a great piece on five of this year's big scientific breakthroughs, and it's too good not to share.

"Schroedinger’s cat with quantum fur." Physicists at the Max Planck Institute have, for the first time, demonstrated quantum entanglement on a large scale, successfully entangling 14 photons together. Because the entire chain is linked to one original atom, it allows for genuine control - opening up entirely new possibilities for quantum computing.

This has got to be one of the most extraordinary creatures we've ever seen. Deep-sea biologists have finally managed to get a good look at a fish known as the barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) through a HD camera of a remotely operated undersea vehicle. They realised that underneath its transparent head, the eyes rotate - essentially, like a fighter pilot inside a jet canopy. Guardian

All the conversations in tech circles right now seem to be about AI-generated art and prompt engineering. It's not just DALL-E. Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, get used to those names too. Someone won first place in an art competition, and everyone's angry. Someone else is developing this Photoshop plugin and it's truly indistinguishable from magic. If this all sounds confusing here's the lowdown.

Scientists have trained an algorithm to detect Parkinson's from night time breathing patterns. The model is "remarkably objective, non-obtrusive, inexpensive, and easy to use at home." Not to be outdone, a Scottish woman with a unique ability to smell Parkinson's has helped researchers in Manchester develop a swab test that can detect the disease in three minutes.

Geneticists in Beijing have fully recombined the genes of a mouse for the first time, breaking its chromosomes down into segments before putting them back together in a new set-up. This means the mouse, Little Bamboo, is the first individual of a completely new and man-made species of rodent, and the world’s first mammal with fully recombined genes. ZME Science

To mark its one year anniversary, the Inouye Solar Telescope, the most powerful instrument of its kind, just captured the face of our Sun in exquisite detail. What you're looking at here is the highest resolution image we've ever seen of the Sun's atmosphere, at just 18 kilometers per pixel. The entire image is around 82,500 kilometers wide. Science Alert

The information highway is still pretty super

AOC in GQ. Weren't sure whether to include this as she's such a political lightning rod, but decided to in the end because she's also emblematic of a new generation of millennials in politics. Smart, media-savvy, and with a complete clarity of purpose, "a democratic-socialist David atop the Establishment Goliath, hoop earrings and a bold red lip in place of a shepherd’s sling." See also, David Pocock.

Following on from the aforementioned explosion of interest in AI-generated art and large language models more generally, here's Kevin Roose with an excellent opinion piece in the NYT. "Some of the progress has been slow and steady, but other times, it feels more like the flick of a switch — impossible acts of magic suddenly becoming possible."

Love this metaphor from Ryan Broderick, who writes the excellent Garbage Day newsletter. The internet isn't a public utility, like a telephone system, nor is it a communication medium like television or radio. It's more like a street corner, a public space where people congregate, and that means if you're threatening people, security should be able to move you on.

With the Merge just days away, can we please recommend this interview with Vitalik Buterin? Can't think of anyone more adept at stripping away the noise surrounding crypto, and getting down to the fundamentals. Such a welcome break from the finance and tech bros who usually dominate these kind of conversations.

Really interesting long read about the quest to create classic toys. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the best toys in the world are often the simplest. Certain ones, like the Rubik's Cube or Lego, not only stand the test of time, but seem to get even better with age. After reading this I went straight out and bought some kinetic sand for Lola and Cleo (Gus). The Walrus

Humankind

Island Time

Meet Estela Matilde, a 37 year old biologist from Portugal who pioneered a community conservation project to save the turtle populations of Príncipe Island in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea from the rising tide of plastic pollution.

Estela graduated from her biology degree with a dream of “changing the world one island at time.” In 2013 she was working as a field biologist when she received an email from an old teacher asking for help to complete the environmental certification process for an hotel on Príncipe Island, off the coast of Africa. Although certification wasn’t her expertise, Estela accepted the challenge and set off on a six month adventure.

Almost ten years and one child later, Estela remains on Príncipe as one of the island’s greatest protectors. Deemed a biosphere in 2012, Príncipe is home to some of the richest biodiversity and highest levels of endemism found anywhere in the world. For Estela, the island was paradise. After her contract with the hotel finished, she started working with local NGOs on conservation projects to help the community reduce pressure on the island’s resources and wildlife.

One of those projects was sea turtle conservation. The island is an important nesting site, with five out of seven of the world’s marine turtle species laying their eggs on the beaches but populations were declining fast as turtle meat was part of traditional cuisine. Estela and her team jumped to action with education programs and legal reform, achieving a near-zero poaching rate and a 43% increase in the number of nests since 2015.

Despite the victory, Estela soon realised she had a much bigger fight on her hands.

While running an experiment, tagging turtles with video cameras to observe their behaviour, she discovered the extent to which plastic pollution was threatening marine life. For seven years, Estrela has led a local crusade to collect over 750,000 plastic bottles washed ashore from all over the world and collaborated with locals to repurpose plastic waste into jewellery, floor mats and other enterprises.

Estela hopes that Príncipe’s grassroots efforts to mitigate pollution, protect biodiversity and use waste in a creative way will inspire other countries to step up their efforts. “We know that Príncipe is a drop in the ocean, but if we, an isolated island that lack so many things can produce such good results, surely any other nation can do the same.”

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your patience last week while we took a few days off. We're back up to full speed, and looking forward to sharing a new charity partner with you in the next edition.

Hope you're doing alright out there, and managing to stay away from the doomscrolling. That stuff can kill you. We'll see you next week.

Much love,

Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team