Hi everyone, following on from last week, we're delighted to announce our new charity partner. Thanks to the amazing team at PRO, we were able to identify a critical latrine rehabilitation project in Nigeria, reaching over 19,000 people in three northeastern states. It's part of a now-terminated USAID program that was constructing water and sanitation infrastructure across the region.
Some of the facilities that were built in the first phase of the project aren't working properly due to increased water demand, and need to be fixed or upgraded to reach more people. With funding withdrawn, the new infrastructure risks falling into disrepair—leaving vulnerable populations, schools, and clinics without safe sanitation.
The rehabilitation project, implemented by Mercy Corps, needs around $100,000 all up; at just $3.35 per person-year of access, this is an incredibly effective investment. We're chipping in $10,000, and several smaller-amount donors are also stepping up to fill the gap. Thanks to all our paid members for making this possible.
If you are an institutional donor, or you work in philanthropy, please take a look at the bigger list. There are so many crucial projects in there, but they need serious funding. We can't provide that level of support - but we know there are people reading this newsletter who can, or who know someone who can.
A career consists of 2,000 work weeks, and how you spend that time is one of the most important decisions of your life. Still, millions of people are stuck in mind-numbing, pointless, or just plain harmful jobs. There’s an antidote to this waste of talent, and it’s called Moral Ambition.
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, co-founder of The School for Moral Ambition, and best-selling author. His books Humankind and Utopia for Realists were both New York Times bestsellers. His work has been translated into 46 languages and has sold over two million copies.
This week's top stories
Quanta, probably the best science publication on the internet, has published a big new series on science and artificial intelligence. Amid all the noise and hype, this is a rare find - a reputable, evidence-based take on where things are at, and where they might be going. It's all free, no paywall :)
It started as a fantasy, then a promise — inspired by biology and animated by the ideas of physicists — and grew to become a powerful research tool. Now artificial intelligence has evolved into something else: a junior colleague, a partner in creativity, an impressive if unreliable wish-granting genie. It has changed everything, from how we relate to data and truth, to how researchers devise experiments and mathematicians think about proofs. In this special series, we explore how AI is changing what it means to do science and math, and what it means to be a scientist.
And no — you don’t need to worry about your carbon footprint when using ChatGPT.
Diabetes deaths in the United States are declining again, following a spike during COVID. In 2021, there were 103,294 deaths from diabetes, up more than 17% compared to 2019, and attributed to the link between COVID-19 and diabetes. However, researchers have tallied 94,294 diabetes deaths for 2024, suggesting that the country has recovered from pandemic-related peaks. CBS
A new brief from The World Bank confirms India’s stunning success in poverty reduction: Extreme poverty (living on less than $2.15 per day) fell from 16.2% in 2011-12 to 2.3% in 2022-23. In more tangible terms, that’s 171 million people lifted from the worst forms of deprivation. India’s five most populous states, home to 65% of the extreme poor in 2011-12, drove two-thirds of this nationwide decline.
Last year Lao PDR became the first ASEAN country to ban corporal punishment of children in all settings (there's a good backstory over here). There’s still a lot of work to be done - 23% of parents or caregivers in Lao still believe corporal punishment is necessary for raising a child - but over the past 12 months multiple ministries, supported by UNICEF, have worked to translate the law into everyday practice.
In this week's edition of Let There Be Light:
- The Tanzanian government has set an ambitious goal of universal electricity access by 2030, and its progress, from a mere 14% national coverage in 2011 to 46% in 2022, is one of the fastest expansion rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. A key driver has been its rural electrification program, which has connected nearly eight million people, over 1,600 healthcare facilities, about 6,500 educational institutions, and more than 16,000 businesses to the grid.
- In Nepal, electricity access has now reached 97.5% of municipalities. The speed of this progress is really quite something. If we go back to 2016, only 58% of households had electricity access and there were around three million electricity customers; by 2024, this had risen to almost six million.
- How Pakistan pulled off one of the fastest solar revolutions in the world. A 'perfect storm' of plummeting panel costs and soaring electricity prices made it world's third-largest solar importer last year. Unlike other countries, Pakistan's estimated 15GW of newly installed capacity is almost entirely on rooftops, giving citizens unprecedented control as both consumers and producers of electricity. CNN
- The UK government has proposed a new requirement that solar panels be installed on all new-build homes in England by 2027, a policy that supports Labour's ambitions to build 1.5 million homes while decarbonising the electricity grid by 2030.
- Meanwhile, Latin America's energy transition has been accelerated by solar panels, and other forms of electricity generated at or near its point of use. Capacity has grown from just 1GW in 2017 to 31.8GW in 2023, with Brazil alone adding approximately 1GW a month.
- And as part of its ongoing pivot to solar, Zambia’s Ministry of Energy has cut the approval timeline for solar energy projects from over six months to just 48 hours. The move is aimed at attracting swift private sector participation and fast-tracking the country’s renewable energy transition.
After a century of infestation, Palmerston Atoll in the Cook Islands has been officially declared rat-free following an eradication operation. The local community has already seen improvements in food security, with fruits and vegetables flourishing without rat damage. Wildlife is rebounding - wood pigeons and red-tailed tropic birds have returned, while seedlings, crabs, and lizards show notable increases. New Zealand Dept of Conservation
And in more excellent ocean-going news…
- A network of marine No Take Zones has come into effect in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands protecting the region's most biodiverse habitats while maintaining sustainable fishing. Oceanographic
- Marine litter along EU coastlines decreased by 29% between 2016 and 2021, with single-use plastics down 40%. The Baltic Sea showed the greatest improvement (45% reduction). European Commission
- The Our Ocean Conference has generated 2,618 commitments to ocean action since 2014, with 81% either completed or in progress In that time, $133 billion has been mobilised for ocean protection, including $23.8 billion in completed projects. At this year's just-finished conference, the EU pledged €301 million, including €40 million to support marine protected areas and help partner countries ratify the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic
- These aren't just paper commitments. Some of the completed projects include Chile's establishment of a 720,000 km² marine protected area around Rapa Nui (a.k.a. Easter Island) and Palau's creation of the world's largest no-take zone, the 475,000 km² Palau National Marine Sanctuary.
New national parks are in the works in Scotland, Australia and the United States.
The Paris region has cut air pollution by over 50% in two decades, saving thousands of lives. Fine particulate and nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 55% and 50% respectively since 2005, reducing pollution-related premature deaths by one-third over a decade; Europe's strict 2030 air quality standards are now being met across most of the region. Air Parif
And it’s not just Europe (or Paris) saving lives: China's "Beautiful China" initiative is successfully cleaning up the country's air and water. In the first quarter of 2025, levels of PM2.5 fell by 4.8%, increasing the number of days with good air quality to 84.8% across prefecture-level cities. Surface water quality has simultaneously improved, with 91% of monitored bodies of water now meeting Grade III or better standards. China Daily
In our last edition, we quoted a Reuters story, saying "Czechia has achieved full independence from Russian oil for the first time in its history." However, Czechia (formerly known as Bohemia) dates to the 9th century, and became a kingdom in the 11th century. That's a much longer, and more pedigreed history than we realised, and of course, most of it without any Russian oil in sight.
Thanks to reader Ana S. for pointing this out.
Oil giants are abandoning the energy battlefield, redirecting profits to shareholders. Major oil companies are not just quitting renewables—they're retreating from energy growth entirely. Rather than investing in future production, oil majors are now diverting more than half of their cash flow to shareholders, a withdrawal that signals "the future of energy is being built around them, not by them." Harry Benham
Tales from the crypt: scientists have uncovered a remarkable time capsule beneath Milan's Ospedale Maggiore, where tens of thousands of hospital patients were buried between 1637-1697. This extraordinary multidisciplinary project analysed hundreds of thousands of human bones, combining archaeology, genetics, and toxicology with the hospital's detailed archives to reconstruct the forgotten lives of ordinary people from a poorly documented period of European history. A truly amazing story from Science.
Breakthrough molecule enables ultra-efficient electronics beyond silicon's limits. University of Miami researchers have developed what they claim is the world's most electrically conductive organic molecule, composed primarily of carbon, sulphur, and nitrogen. This breakthrough allows electrons to travel without energy loss across distances previously thought impractical, potentially enabling significantly smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient computers while maintaining affordability in manufacturing.
And finally, the winners of this year's Dance Your PhD have just been announced, and you should definitely start with Arfor Houwman's entry, which took top honours in the physics category. Nerdy science songs have no right being this catchy. Lasers, lasers, lasers, LAZERS.
For paid members this week
Philanthropists set up a massive new global fund for maternal and child health.
Ghana uses drones to counter USAID disruptions.
China's extraordinary track record on wetland conservation.
The world's ferry industry goes electric quicker than anyone predicted.
The guy who got so fired up after 9/11 he almost killed himself and ended up possibly developing the first ever universal snake antivenom.
(28 more stories in the full edition).