310: Bipedalism. Rice. US prisons empty out. Fires in the Amazon ⬇️🔥. A very cute marsupial.
Hidden stories of progress from around the world.
You're reading the premium version of Fix The News, a weekly roundup of stories of progress. We give away 30% of your subscription fee to charity. Give someone a gift subscription. Get a group subscription for friends, family or your organisation. Listen to Episode 1 of A Shot At History, our audio documentary about the malaria vaccine.
One of our readers is Professor Jennifer Mercieca, who teaches communication and journalism at Texas A&M. She recently ran an experiment with her students that we think you'll find fascinating.
Like many of us, Jen’s students are chronic doomscrollers, turning their phones into what she calls ‘misery machines.’ But instead of just accepting this as the way things are, she decided to try something: what if her students spent time ‘hopescrolling’ instead?
She had them create social media accounts devoted entirely to sharing solutions journalism, about problems being solved, diseases being eradicated, renewable energy advances, that kind of thing. None of their posts went viral or got much engagement (no surprise there) but what happened to the students themselves was remarkable.
Many of my students reported that the experience was both illuminating and healing. “Before our Hopescroll project,” one wrote, “I really didn’t realize the amount of negative content I consume daily. I see scary news articles, I see people being mean to one another on social media, and I spend hours scrolling through posts that have no meaningful purpose.” Some students even noticed that their social media algorithms began to change, as they started to see more positive content on their feeds instead of quite so much doom.
One student reported that shifting their attention away from “institutions that benefit from people’s fear” and toward “those who aim to heal” made them feel more resilient. Several students noted that they saw a shift in their moods that surprised them: “Honestly, I did not expect that much would change, however, after reading about communities working together for a large cause, individuals trying to make a difference in their own way, and new innovations being made in hopes of creating a better future, it readjusted my perspective that not all is bad and/or lost in the world.”
What Jen’s experiment shows is that we’re not passive victims of algorithmic manipulation. We have more power than we think. Every time we share outrage bait or doom-laden headlines, we're feeding a machine that makes everyone more miserable. But we also have the ability to choose differently. The algorithms will follow us wherever we lead them. We just have to decide where we want to go.
Thanks to Jen for this. You can read more about her experiment over here.
This week’s top stories
Rice prices fall, and a record harvest looms. Favourable weather and decades of farming improvements mean the world is on track for its biggest rice crop in nearly two decades. Global production for 2025–26 is forecast at about 541 million tonnes, helping to push prices down to their lowest in 18 years, and easing food costs for billions of people. Bloomberg
Fossil and genetic clues show how humans stood upright. A major study has traced how the human pelvis evolved for bipedalism. By comparing fossils with embryonic samples from humans and primates, scientists found that hip bones began growing in a new orientation about seven million years ago. Genetic analysis showed existing genes switched on in new patterns, reshaping muscles for balance. Science / New York Times
World’s largest fusion project approaches moment of truth. In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world's largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device designed to sustain burning plasma - and US engineers just started the final assembly of the reactor core. The project has been plagued by delays, so we’re glad to hear it’s back on track. Evidence Network
We know it was our top story last week, but we want to revisit the recent WHO/UNICEF report on water, sanitation and hygiene. The change since 2000 is staggering. Back then, only two-thirds of humanity could drink safe water; today it’s three-quarters, despite the world’s population growing by two billion. During the same time, sanitation has gone from being accessible to less than half of the world to nearly 60%, and basic handwashing has gone from 59% to 80% of the global population.
The scale of this is almost impossible to get your head around. We are talking about billions of lives altered in the most tangible of ways: homes with taps, schools with toilets, clinics where soap and water are always available. Progress like this slips past unnoticed, hidden by the news cycle, but in the grand sweep of history it’s as big as anything gets. Those numbers represent real children playing in the streets instead of dying from some shitty disease, hundreds of millions of mothers spared the daily burden of carrying water, and countless communities freed to focus on more than just survival.
👆 Our species has done something genuinely remarkable here, and it’s worth stopping for a moment to appreciate it.
Africa emerges from a decade of debt crises. For the first time in ten years, no African country is officially in debt distress. Mozambique was the last to exit after its borrowing costs eased. Debt burdens remain high and still weigh on growth, but the pressure is easing thanks to IMF-backed restructurings, falling inflation and renewed investor appetite. Bloomberg
Global solar installations surge. In the first half of the year, the world added 380 GW of new solar capacity, a 64% jump from the first six months of 2024. It took until September last year to surpass 350 GW; in 2025 we crossed that threshold in June. Ember
US power growth now almost entirely clean
Trendlines vs headlines. In July 2025, 99.7% of power capacity that came online was clean. Solar and batteries made up 94% of additions, with large storage projects in Texas, Oregon and Arizona anchoring the buildout. California added a bunch of solar-plus-storage projects, while new solar farms were built across 20 states. Cleanview
Totally unrelated. ConocoPhillips, the third largest oil producer in the United States, is cutting its workforce by 20-25%. Reuters
After more than a century of industrial abuse, the Chicago River is now seeing fish populations return, recreational use expand and pollution decline. Multi-billion-dollar investments in sewage treatment and stormwater infrastructure have transformed what was once an open sewer into a recovering urban waterway. Inside Climate News
Solar electric plane soars to new heights. The SolarStratos aircraft, powered entirely by solar energy, has set a new altitude record for solar-electric planes by flying over the Alps, at over 8,000 metres, in a five-hour flight. The flight demonstrates the potential of lightweight photovoltaics and batteries for high-altitude aviation. New Atlas
In Brazil, Amazon fires drop by nearly two-thirds. Area burned fell 65% in July 2025 vs July 2024 - the smallest monthly area burned since satellite mapping of fire damage began in 2019. Over the first six months of the year, fires are down by 59%, the sharpest reduction in more than a decade. Officials attribute the decline to tighter enforcement, anti-deforestation policies and community fire prevention programmes. France24
Plus: Brazil has secured further support from the EU, US, UK and other partners for a $125 billion global fund to protect the Amazon. Bloomberg
And Brazil has passed a law banning the sale of cosmetics developed through animal testing. As the world’s fourth-largest beauty market, this means products like shampoo, perfume and makeup must now rely on cruelty-free safety methods. Brazil joins more than 45 countries with similar bans, shifting global standards. Humane World
US prison population falls to its lowest in decades. America’s prison population has declined to its lowest level since 1992, with around 1.2 million people behind bars, down from a 2009 peak of 1.6 million. The shift reflects sentencing reforms, drug decriminalisation, diversion to treatment, and falling violent crime. The Atlantic
As the snake digests the pig year after year, the American prison system is simply not going to have enough inmates to justify its continued size or staggering costs.
Global bans on corporal punishment multiply. The WHO’s first global report shows the number of countries banning corporal punishment of children has jumped from 11 in 2000 to 67 in 2024. The shift represents a generational change in recognising children’s rights, though billions remain unprotected. UN News, End Corporal Punishment
Two new breakthroughs are reshaping oncology. Novartis’s radioligand therapy, which delivers radioactive isotopes directly to tumours, has completely cleared metastatic cancers in trial patients - an unprecedented result. And, US researchers found that blocking an immune protein (IL-23) makes HPV vaccines effective against existing tumours, raising hopes for therapeutic vaccines. Financial Times / Gavi
Humans harness AI to produce strange, successful physics experiments. Physicists gave an AI system freedom to propose experiments, and it devised unconventional setups, including some involving mirrors and magnets, that nonetheless produced valid results. The approach hints at a much-anticipated possibility that ‘machine creativity’ could drive new discoveries. Quanta
Good news from Australia! The crest-tailed mulgara has roared back to life. The mini marsupial predator, once listed as Endangered, expanded its range by more than 48,000 km² between 2015 and 2021, lifting its status to Least Concern. Researchers credit biocontrol, plus the species’ drought-hardy physiology, for a rare continent-scale mammal recovery. Biological Conservation
