197: Toroidal

Good news you probably didn't hear about

A new law protecting women against discrimination and sexual harassment has come into effect in China. It's the country's most significant reform to women's rights in 30 years, and the only place we were able to find the story was in a law journal and an HR magazine. In case the significance isn't apparent, there are 326 million female employees in China.

Happy World Neglected Tropical Disease Day! It was on the 30th January, and there's a lot to celebrate. 80 million fewer people required treatment in 2021 compared to 2010, a fall of 25% in a decade. Eight countries eliminated a tropical disease last year, 47 countries have now eliminated at least one, and many more are on track to achieving this target. WHO

Millions of people have been liberated from the burden of neglected tropical diseases. As this progress report shows, we still have a lot of work to do. The good news is, we have the tools and the know-how not just to save lives and prevent suffering, but to free entire communities and countries of these diseases.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO

Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia, is a tropical disease caused by parasitic worms, and has plagued people in China for more than 2,100 years. In the 1950s, 11.6 million cases were detected, and approximately 100 million people were at risk. Today, the disease is close to being eradicated. The number of cases in 2021 was 29,041, a reduction of 92.97% from 2008. WHO

Researchers in the UK have figured out a way to reduce the risk of colon cancer recurrence by 28%, just by changing the timing of patients’ chemotherapy. The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t require any additional treatment or new medication. "Doctors around the world will now be able to put these findings into clinical practice, saving many thousands of lives." Freethink

The US government just launched a new initiative to allow Americans to directly sponsor refugees. The 'Welcome Corps' is modelled on Canada's successful program, and within 24 hours of its launch, more than 4,000 people had signed up to get more information. "This is a moment for America to be as generous as we know that we can be as a country." NPR

Sierra Leone has passed landmark legislation advancing women’s rights. Activists have been fighting for this for more than a decade. The law requires all employers to reserve at least 30% of jobs for women, extends maternity leave to 14 weeks, mandates equal pay, grants equal access to financial support and training and puts an end to six decades of customary laws that prevented women from owning land.

Did you know 2022 was a great year for LGBTQ rights around the world? Numerous countries removed bans on homosexuality, outlawed conversion therapy and legalized gay marriage. 33 governments have now legalized same-sex unions, triple the number compared to a decade ago. “It feels like something of a tipping point." Bloomberg

Did you know 2022 was a great year for children's rights? Zambia, Mauritius, Comoros and Cuba banned corporal punishment, Cuba, Mauritius, England, Wales and Zambia ended child marriage, Nigeria and Burkina Faso ended military detention of children and Colombia, Republic of Congo and Tunisia agreed to protect education in armed conflict and refrain from using schools for military purposes. HRW

Enrolments under the Affordable Care Act in the United States have reached an all-time high, driving the nation’s uninsured rate down to record lows. The proportion of uninsured people under the of age 65 is now down to 8%. In 2009, the year before the ACA was enacted, 17.5% of people under 65 lacked insurance. Still no death panels in sight. WSJ

China's population decline has been met with almost universal dismay in the Western media, framed as the harbinger of a demographic and economic time bomb that will strain the world’s capacity to support ageing populations. Here's the other side of the story, by a Chinese professor of sociology specialising in demographics. NYT

Millions of working people around the world live in extreme poverty, but the good news is that this number has decreased substantially over the last few decades, from 808 million in 1991 to 224 million in 2021. This epic graphic shows what that change looks like over time, broken down into different regions of the world. Visual Capitalist

Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it

One of the world’s biggest oil companies is reporting that global oil demand peaked in 2019. BP's 2023 Energy Outlook is now projecting that global oil demand will fall slowly in the next few years, followed by a rapid decline from around 2030 onwards. Feels like perhaps this should be headline news?

Global investment in the low-carbon energy transition totalled $1.1 trillion in 2022, matching investment in fossil fuels for the first time eve. Nearly every sector, from renewable power to batteries to heat pumps to carbon capture — hit new highs. “Investment in clean energy technologies is on the brink of overtaking fossil fuel investments, and won’t look back.” Bloomberg

China was by far the leading country for attracting clean energy investment last year, accounting for $546 billion or nearly half of the global total. You hear a lot about coal in China, but what you probably didn't hear was that in 2022, China invested 11 times as much money in renewables as it did in coal. IEA

Every single one of the 210 coal plants in the United States (with the exception of one, in Wyoming), now costs more to keep operating than to replace with new wind or solar. That means for every minute they stay on, they don't just emit more carbon - they lose money. “This is a system that is kind of struggling to stay around.” Inside Climate News

Danske, Denmark’s biggest bank, and the second-largest bank in the Nordic region, has declared an end to fossil fuel financing, and HSBC says it will no longer provide finance for new metallurgical coal mines, with more banks to follow, as has already happened with thermal coal.

2022 was the first year that the EU produced more electricity from solar and wind than from gas. The pace at which this has happened is incredible (we remember reporting when wind and solar overtook coal back in 2019). Three years later, clean energy is the continent's main source of electricity. "Europe is hurtling towards a clean, electrified economy." Reuters

Remember how every headline screamed "COAL IS COMING BACK" when European countries reactivated some coal plants last year? Well, thanks to wind and solar, they were hardly used. The continent's 26 coal units placed on standby over winter ran at an average of just 18% capacity. “Any fears of a coal rebound are now dead.” Energy Monitor

Apparently European coal bosses are feeling very sad.

The most important thing nobody is talking about when it comes to clean energy in the US right now is transmission. That's why we were so pleased to see that a 200 km, 3.2 GW capacity transmission line between California and Arizona broke ground last week, and a 616 km, 3 GW capacity line between Montana and Dakota has been announced, the first to connect three regional US electric energy markets.

Volkswagen, the world's second largest car manufacturer, had a great year for EVs. Despite supply challenges and manufacturing halts, its customers received 572,100 all-electric vehicles — a 26% increase from 2021. Meanwhile, the largest car manufacturer in the world is facing a Kodak moment, as it realises it might have left the electric vehicle transition too late.

Suzuki has become the latest automotive manufacturer to read the tea leaves. It will invest $34.8 billion over the next seven years on research, development and capital to make battery electric vehicles. Its first EV models, including small sport-utility vehicles and micro 'kei' cars, will debut in Japan this year. Reuters

OK we know we've been banging this drum hard but it's worth repeating. A new study has shown the world has more than enough rare earth minerals and raw materials to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy - and at a fraction of the impact. We do however, need to do it responsibly. “Decarbonization is going to be big and messy, but at the same time we can do it.” AP

The only home we've ever known

Over 225,000 acres of Minnesota’s pristine Boundary Waters Wilderness will be protected thanks to a 20-year mining ban approved by the Biden Administration. It’s good news for one of America’s most visited wilderness areas and a ‘fatal blow’ for a proposed mining project. Grist

Protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest have been reinstated, a long-awaited victory for the tribal communities who live in it. Spanning nearly 17 million acres - an area slightly larger than the state of West Virginia – Tongass is home to 800-year-old cedar, hemlock and Sitka spruce trees and over 400 species of land and marine wildlife. BBC

I describe walking into the forest as walking into one of the most beautiful cathedrals you'll ever find in the world. I don't want my grandchildren, their grandchildren, to have to fight for that too.
Joel Jackson, President of the Organized Village of Kake

The EPA has finalised a new rule to formally restore federal Clean Water Act protections for streams and wetlands that sustain fish and wildlife and hunting and fishing opportunities. The new rule has been championed by hunters and anglers and will replace the previous administration's Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which significantly narrowed protections. TRCP

Following on from our story last week about Miyawaki forests in Paris, pocket forests are also popping up in the Amazon. 14,734 hectares have been reforested using the Miyawaki method, which can restore nature to its original state in around six years. The secret to its speed lies in that it understands the forest as a society … a living ecosystem that continuously renovates itself. Mongabay

Germany will give Brazil $222 million towards preserving the Amazon. Distributing funds to indigenous groups would be a wise investment; regions of the Brazilian Amazon under indigenous control account for just 5% of forest loss over the last two decades, compared with unprotected areas that have lost up to 14 times more. ABC

A new protected area in British Columbia will permanently safeguard the ‘rarest of the rare’ species including lichens, grizzly bears, wolverines and old-growth cedars and hemlock trees. The 58,000 hectare conservancy in the Incomappleux Valley is one of Canada’s last remaining inland temperate rainforests. Narwhal

Efforts to save the Western Monarch butterfly are paying off, with 335,479 butterflies migrating to the Californian coastline last year, a welcome increase from less than 2,000 butterflies in 2020. Local efforts continue to double down on protecting the overwintering sites, restoring habitats, and stopping the use of pesticides. Xerces

For over 200 years, Phillip Island, off the coast of Victoria, was overrun by feral pigs, goats and rabbits introduced during European settlement. The result was devastating, completely destroying the island's vegetation. In 1979 an eradication program begun and by 1988 non-native species were successfully eliminated from the island. The change is astonishing. Nature will recover - if we let it. SMH

Ireland’s Greater Skellig Coast has become the country’s first ever 'Hope Spot' — an area scientifically identified as critically important to marine conservation. The designation will protect roughly 7,000 km² of Irish coastal waters and is part of a global initiative by Mission Blue, who have designated 148 Hope Spots around the world. Green News

Rewilding charity Heal has bought 460 acres of land in Somerset to kickstart an effort to create nature reserves spanning 48 English counties by 2050. The Somerset site will become a blueprint for the project and will include food growing areas, community meeting spaces and rare-breed cattle, pigs, and ponies to graze land in a natural way. BBC

Indistinguishable from magic

The basic design of propellers hasn't changed much in thousands of years. That might be about to change though, with the arrival of toroidal propellors, which have strange, twisted shapes that distribute vortices across the entire prop, instead of just at the tip. The result? They're radically quieter in both air and water, and result in huge efficiency gains. New Atlas

An international team of scientists say they've found a way to directly electrolyze seawater into hydrogen, bypassing the need for high-purity water. By putting an acid layer over the surface of the catalysts (the metals that facilitate the electrochemical process), ocean water can be directly converted into clean fuel, without the need for expensive purification. SCMP

Four dots of light, moving around a black disk. Doesn't seem like much, but what you're looking at is one of the most incredible time-lapse videos we've ever seen - an actual planetary system. Using observations collected over 12 years, an astrophysicist has imaged four massive gas giants orbiting a star named HR8799 that's 133 light-years from Earth. Northwestern University

Google unveiled two big AI breakthroughs this week. The first is a generative AI that can create high-fidelity songs and music with 'substantial complexity' from a text prompt, e.g. calming violin melody backed by distorted guitar riff. The second is a reinforcement learning AI that can solve novel navigational, planning and manipulation tasks in a 3D virtual world as fast and as accurately as humans.

A Chinese biotech company has used AI to design a potential liver cancer drug in under 30 days. They used machine learning to identify a protein called CDK20, then used Alphafold to figure out its 3D structure, and another program to design corresponding drug compounds, one of which has shown promise. It's a long way from there to approval - but 30 days for something that usually takes years is remarkable. Discover

The real city of the future. Amsterdam just spent four years building a 7,000 bicycle underwater parking garage next to its main train station. It's a marvel of engineering - workers had to drain the water in front of the 19th-century station before laying the garage floor and installing giant columns, shipped in by barge, to support the roof, which was then submerged again. The Verge

US medical engineers have developed a new method for eliminating brain blood clots that relies on something known as 'vortex ultrasound', which sends waves of ultrasound from a catheter spiralling at clots like an invisible drill. It's 63.4% faster than traditional ultrasound, and a lot safer and faster than pharmaceutical interventions. Physics World

The information highway is still super

The subtitle says it all. A new field of psychology has begun to quantify an age-old intuition: feeling awe is good for us. The author, Henry Wismayer, spends time with Dacher Keltner, a Berkeley professor at the forefront of a scientific movement examining our least-understood emotional state - the lightning-in-a-bottle sensation that's the keystone of religious devotion and the wellspring of human curiosity. Informative but not dense, and may just leave you feeling fresh, open-minded, and ready to experience the day’s small wonders. Neoma

Loved this profile of the world’s most renowned restorer of Stradivarius violins. “These instruments have a certain soul. When a soloist brings their instrument in, I don’t need them to tell me what’s going on. I watch them, I watch their bow, I watch their fingers. People think it’s magic, but it’s just experience.” Reading this, you can't help but think of the Japanese term shokunin, which means 'mastery of one's profession'. Wonderful. Chicago Mag

One of the best newsletters on the internet is Why Is This Interesting, which always manages to surprise us with something we don't know about. Last week's edition was one for the ages, describing the history of The Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, one of the most unique sporting events in the world. This year's edition was attended by all the big-name surfers, but in something of a Cinderella story was won by a local Hawaiian lifeguard. Great story.

Oh, and a day later, Kai Lenny had a Tony Hawke moment at Jaws, throwing 360s off the face and hitting the lip of one of the world's most renowned big waves as if it was a four footer. Unbelievable.

Humankind

Food Matters

Meet Marcelo Sous, the 29 year old founder of Redalco, a non-profit in Uruguay that has recovered over 3,300,000 kilograms of food waste to provide healthy meals for food-scarce communities.

Marcelo was born in Montevideo, where he became involved in community service during his teenage years as part of a youth group. The experience opened the young Marcelo’s eyes to the impact he could have on the world and eventually led him into a development degree to learn how to create his own social initiatives.

In 2016 he launched a small hummus and falafel delivery business to earn extra cash while studying. On the first day of his new venture, he went to the city’s wholesale Mercado Markets to pick up a cheap drawer of lemons and walked out with an entirely new mission. Shocked by the volume of edible fruit and vegetables thrown into waste containers because they were too 'ugly' to sell, Marcelo rallied some classmates and came up with a plan to put the food to better use.

Marcelo’s team got permission from the market authorities to collect discards from vendors and then reached out to local charities in need of produce donations. Their first attempt recovered 100 kilograms of produce which they distributed between two shelters and a community retirement home. Seeing first-hand the difference that the discarded produce made to the people receiving the food, Marcelo knew he was onto something and launched Redalco, the 'Shared Food Network.'

Inspired by his mission, the markets donated a space on site for Marcelo’s team to collect and distribute the food. In just five years, the organisation has become one of Uruguay’s most important NGOs, distributing produce to over 400 charities who have been able to provide 8,250,000 meals for people who need them the most.

Despite this huge achievement, Marcelo isn’t done yet. He dreams of inspiring similar organisations all over the world to create one global solution that tackles hunger and climate change together.

We are just four friends who just got together to do good in our community. I want everyone to gain enough confidence to promote this kind of initiative.

We are all done, thanks for reading! Hope you're doing alright out there, we'll see you in a week.

Much love,

Gus, Amy and the rest of the team