Give a damn
The Butterfly IQ is the world’s first handheld ultrasound device and one of the most impressive pieces of medical technology we've ever seen. It's about the size of an electric shaver, and connects to a smartphone or a tablet to quickly perform ultrasounds and upload scans to the internet. Doctors and nurses can slip the device into their pocket and carry it with them the same way they would a stethoscope.
Two years ago, the NYT did a feature on an organization called Bridge to Health, which was using the devices for pneumonia screening in Uganda and maternal health in Kenya. That's where we first heard about this technology, and since then we've seen it in action in places like Gaza and on the US-Mexico border, allowing doctors to provide basic medical care to people struggling to get access to hospitals.
Bridge to Health is now planning a new expedition, this time to Yemen, which is where you come in. We're sending them $4,500 on your behalf, to buy two extra Butterfly IQ devices to take with them, putting life-saving medical imaging into the hands of people who need it the most, and allowing them to continue their work through the ongoing humanitarian crisis. We’ll keep you updated on the progress.
A huge thank you to all of you, our paying subscribers for making this happen.
Good news
Last year's numbers for global wind power are finally in and they're better than almost anyone predicted: a 53% increase in the number of new turbines installed compared to 2019. The record growth is thanks to the world's two largest emitters, China and the US, who together commissioned 75% of new installations. GWEC
Electric car sales boomed by 40% in 2020, with Europe officially overtaking China, spurred on by subsidies and tighter fuel standards. Growth looks set to continue, with sales in the first quarter of 2021 more than doubling from the same period in 2020. There are now around 10 million EVs on the world's roads, plus about another one million vans, trucks and buses. Independent
A new paper in The Lancet has shown that de-worming initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa in the last two decades have resulted in a significant decline in cases among children, from 44% in 2000 to 13% in 2018. This is a huge win for one of the world's most underrated public health problems, improving the lives of millions of people and driving economic development.
The US EPA has proposed a new rule that will phase-out the production and use of HFCs by 85% over the next 15 years, saving nearly $284 billion and preventing the equivalent of 187 million tons of CO2 emissions, roughly equal to the annual emissions of one in seven vehicles registered in the United States. AP
A philanthropist in South Carolina has gifted 7,500 acres of highlands to conservation groups in the largest private land donation in the state’s history. The area is home to numerous threatened and endangered plant and animal species and includes the largest American Chestnut restoration project in the country. ABC13
Lawmakers in Florida have put their money where their mouth is, committing $100 million to preserve environmentally sensitive lands after passing legislation to preserve the migration paths for animals like the endangered Florida panther. It is the state's most significant spending on land conservation since 2014. WUSF
A massive, bipartisan clean water infrastructure bill has been approved 89-2 by the US Senate. The legislation will improve water quality, remove lead pipes from schools, and update infrastructure for the impacts of extreme weather and climate change. 40% of the funds will target underserved, rural, and tribal communities. Grist
A major clean-up of New Zealand’s Kaipara Harbour begins this month, with community groups, landowners and local government working together to restore the water health of the 602,000 hectare catchment. 20 million native trees will be planted around the erosion-prone land to stop sediment running into the harbour. RNZ
The US government has ramped up its protection of endangered humpback whales, declaring 300,000 km² of the Pacific Ocean as critical habitat. It’s a big win for conservationists who sued the federal government in 2018 over its failure to designate protected areas, which are proven to double the chance of species’ recovery. WAN
Government incentives for pesticide free, wildlife-friendly farming in the UK have helped save Britain’s rarest butterfly, the Duke of Burgundy, from near extinction. The population has soared by 25% over the past decade with one of the largest colonies found on an organic dairy farm in Dorset. Guardian
Indistinguishable from magic
Move over CRISPR, the Retrons are coming! A new gene editing technique called Retron Library Recombineering enables millions of genetic experiments to be performed simultaneously, allowing for the study of how multiple mutations interact with each other, and far better predictions for mutational effects. Science Daily
Results from Phase 3 trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder are in, and unsurprisingly they're extremely positive. Two months after treatment 67% of the MDMA cohort no longer qualified for PTSD diagnosis, compared to 32% in the placebo group. These are the first Phase 3 results for psychedelic-based therapy, paving the way for FDA approval in 2023. New Atlas
The Dead Sea Scrolls are famous for containing the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament and many other ancient Jewish texts. The puzzle of which scribes wrote each section however, has been indecipherable, until now. Dutch researchers just cracked the code by using machine learning to analyze each instance of the letter aleph, or “a." Science Daily
Dozens of babies in the United Kingdom with spina bifida have been spared paralysis and other life-limiting conditions after undergoing a new, cutting-edge procedure in the womb. The 'intricate and mind-blowing surgery’ takes a team of up to 30 doctors to carry out, and has been carried out on 32 babies since January 2020. Sky
More medical breakthroughs from the UK. The NHS is introducing a revolutionary technology that turns a CT scan of the heart into a 3D image, allowing doctors to diagnose heart disease in 20 minutes. The tool, known as HeartFlow, will be used on more than 100,000 patients over the next three years, preventing tens of thousands of invasive procedures such as angiograms. Sky
Meanwhile, somewhere in the North Sea, the British Navy has been hard at work making someone's childhood dreams a reality. Last week's exercise, which lasted three days and involved 42 Commando Royal Marines, was designed to explore "alternatives to traditional maritime boarding practices." BI
Information superhighway
The work of Rebecca Solnit will be familiar to our regular readers. In her latest essay for the Guardian, she argues that increasingly, there are reasons to hope when it comes to climate change, because the technical and economic barriers have been crossed, leaving only the political as an impediment to change. Guardian
Helen Macdonald explores what swifts, the birds who never land, can teach us about making decisions in the face of 'oncoming bad weather' and how important it is to explore our current problems from different vantage points. “To orient themselves correctly, they need to pay attention not only to the cues of the world around them but also to one another.” NYT
If you bring up the topic of AI at a dinner party, you’ll get a range of emotional responses. It’s these very emotions that are now at the heart of the machine/ human debate, with Kate Darling questioning whether our emotional attachment to robots leaves us vulnerable to a new wave of marketing, and Kate Crawford warning that human emotions are too complicated for machines to recognize.
This could be the synopsis for a Hollywood crime blockbuster, except it’s a real life tale of the exploits of French master criminal and escape artist, Rédoine Faïd. Life imitates art imitates life, as Faïd often paid tribute to films like Point Break, Heat, and Reservoir Dogs in his crimes and gained his own celebrity status along the way, even while in solitary confinement. GQ
For Mitchell Johnson, the Oscar winning film Nomandland brought international attention to people like his mum, who started living in RVs after the recession of 2011. Exploring the rise of Instagram’s #vanlife and America’s long history of frontiers, this essay will leave you questioning the fine line between pioneer and victim, and the rising cost of our obsession with property ownership. The Drift
Humankind
Meet Doris Chua Kheng Geck, a 63 year old tutor from Singapore who has given disadvantaged kids hope for a better education after leaving million dollars to World Vision Singapore before she passed away in March this year from ovarian cancer.
Doris loved children. As the fourth of seven siblings and divorced with no children of her own, she started a childcare centre before working as a private Chinese tutor for ten years. In 2015, a book about Nelson Mandela stirred her curiosity about how she could help children in African communities and after some research, she decided to sponsor a 10 year old Ethiopian girl named Konjit, through World Vision. Not one to do things by halves, in 2017 Doris packed her bags to travel to Ethiopia and connect with Konjit in person.
The following year, shortly after her 60th birthday, Doris was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer. Always planning ahead, she changed her will so that the proceeds from her three-room, million-dollar condominium would go to World Vision Singapore to fund education programs. As part of Doris’ final wishes, Konjit will continue to be sponsored until she turns 18.
Described by her family as a free-spirited person who was full of optimism, Doris is proof that a legacy of love and generosity can endure far beyond a single lifetime. "This is in the hope that it would be able to help the children in Africa have a higher chance of receiving an education to help their country. I am just doing my small part." Asia One
We're all done here, thanks for reading, and thanks for the support. You're helping create a few tiny little dents in this corner of the universe. We hope you're enjoying the shapes they're making. We'll see you next week.
Much love,
Amy, Tane and the rest of the FC team
