The Progress Network

🤰 The past decade has seen a transformation of the success rate of uterus transplants, for the recipient, the grantee, and the resultant babies.

🥹“It’s a complete new world,” one transplant surgeon told STAT.

Source: https://www.statnews.com/2024/08/16/uterus-transplants-efficacy-safety-jama-study-no-adverse-impact-on-babies/

🧑‍🎤The search for life on Mars is back on!

👽Using data from the robotic explorer InSight Lander, scientists have calculated that vast quantities of water could be trapped miles below the planet’s surface, renewing hopes that there may be life there.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/aug/12/new-hope-of-finding-life-on-mars-after-indication-of-water-scientists-say

🇺🇦Ukraine has legalized medical cannabis!

🍃To get it, patients will need an electronic prescription and will only be able to purchase it from licensed pharmacies.

Source: https://united24media.com/latest-news/ukraine-legalizes-medical-cannabis-1779

"Research from Asia shows that happiness rises when people eat together in group settings, and pleasure is enhanced when memories of past meals are savored," writes TPN member Arthur Brooks.

"So, to be happier, make eating a social, memorable experience as often as possible."

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/ultimate-happiness-diet/679520/

🤠3 Things That Went Right This Week🤠
📉The annual US inflation rate last month was 2.9%, the lowest it has been since March 2021.
👍The FDA just approved the first at-home syphilis test.
🏳️‍🌈A Chinese court recognized that a child can have two legal mothers.
Need more? Read on!
https://theprogressnetwork.org/public-warning-systems/

🇺🇸🥂The Daily Dose via Gallup 🥂🇺🇸
According to a new Gallup poll, only 25% of American adults say that drinking has ever been a cause of trouble in their family, the lowest amount since 1996.

How did this happen?

A generational change in attitude towards drinking. 65% of US adults aged 18 to 34 say alcohol consumption negatively affects one’s health, 37% of those aged 35 to 54 and 39% of those aged 55 and older agree.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/648413/alcohol-consumption-increasingly-viewed-unhealthy.aspx

"I hope, over the next 10, 20, 30 years, there will be just a litany of treatments for genetic diseases and cancers that are potentially successfully treated and cured thanks to this technology," says exec. editor of the CRISPR Journal Kevin Davies.

https://link.chtbl.com/xf5tS9OC?sid=fb

"We all of us can begin to break out of this cycle by not demanding of politicians and government things that they cannot deliver," writes TPN founder Zachary Karabell.

"The president cannot magically make prices go down or wages go up."

The Micromanaged Economy Two big events this week, one of which almost everyone knows about – the Democratic Convention in Chicago – and one that almost only economic policy wonks know about – the annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium attended by most of the Federal Reserve governors.

🌪️This week in the What Could Go Right? newsletter we are celebrating the fact that better early warning systems for weather and natural disasters are saving lives.

Source: https://theprogressnetwork.org/public-warning-systems/

Honestly, it would work on us.😅

Source: Macquarie University “Scientists cook up a plan to save freshwater crocodiles from toxic cane toads”

Photos by:

David Clode





Georgia Ward-Fear

       

🇨🇱📉The Daily Dose via The Progress Playbook 📉🇨🇱
Chile is phasing out coal faster than any other developing nation!

In 2016 coal generated 43.6% of the country's electric output. By the first half of 2024, that number had plummeted to 17.5%!

Source: https://theprogressplaybook.com/2024/08/07/how-chile-engineered-the-developing-worlds-fastest-coal-phaseout/

"Libraries are having their day," writes TPN member Deborah Fallows for Our Towns Civic Foundation.

"...Libraries have come full-circle in a way, with today’s maker spaces harkening back to Ben Franklin’s experiments with electricity at the Philadelphia Library Company."

Source: https://www.ourtownsfoundation.org/how-libraries-are-becoming-sustainable/

🤔Where should humans draw the line with gene editing?

🎧This week,TPN founder Zachary Karabell TPN exec. director Emma Varvaloucas asked Kevin Davies, exec. editor of The CRISPR Journal and author of "Editing Humanity," about its implications for mankind's future.

Listen to the episode: https://link.chtbl.com/xf5tS9OC?sid=fb

🌍💉The Daily Dose via Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance 💉🌍
Mozambique has become the eleventh African country to introduce the lifesaving malaria vaccine into routine immunization for children!

Why are so many African countries adopting malaria vaccines?

The continent is home to 94% of global malaria cases and 95% of all malaria deaths in 2022, according to the 2023 World Malaria Report.

Source: https://www.gavi.org/news/media-room/mozambique-introduces-malaria-vaccines-routine-immunization

🐊How do you protect freshwater crocodiles from eating deadly invasive cane toads?

🤢Scientists Macquarie University with Bunuba Indigenous rangers have decided to give them food poisoning.

😮And it's working. The plan has decreased deaths by 95%!

Source: https://phys.org/news/2024-08-scientists-cook-freshwater-crocodiles-toxic.html

🔋In the middle of the Belgian North Sea is the world's first wind-powered, electric charging station for ships.

🌊But what if the sea is rough?

😮It can adapt to various conditions and will provide a solid charge, even in the choppiest waves.

Source: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/wind-powered-electric-ship-charger-parkwind

👏The FDA has cleared the first at-home syphilis test in the US!

👍The manufacturer anticipates the 15-minute test being available in pharmacies, major retail stores, and online as early as September.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/08/16/syphilis-test-at-home/

🇸🇪📉The Daily Dose via DW News 📉🇸🇪
Since 1990, Sweden's net emissions have fallen by 80%, even as its economy has grown.

🤔How did they do it?
🌊After the global oil crisis in the 70s, Sweden invested early in renewables and nuclear energy.
🔥It also invested in district heating systems, rather than having one per house.
💰And introduced carbon emission taxes in the 90s.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/lessons-from-climate-hero-sweden-renewable-energy-heating-systems-climate-incentives/a-69766330

👍Global clean energy investment has risen by 40% since 2020!

👎But the world still isn’t on track to reach its emission reduction targets.

🎧 TPN member Jason Bordoff spoke with with Arun Majumdar, Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, about how we could get there.

Getting Educated on a Clean Energy Future - Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA | CGEP Hear in-depth conversations with the world’s top energy and climate leaders from government, business, academia, and civil society.

🚍Pink buses offering free rides to women and girls, painted with the slogan “Na Dar, Na Rukawat” (No Fear, No Obstacle) have been launched in Islamabad this month!

🎯Their goal?

🫶Making sure women have safe ways to travel to school or work.

Source: https://www.islamabadscene.com/islamabad-launches-free-pink-bus-service-for-working-women-students-and-teachers/

🇺🇸📉The Daily Dose via AP 🇺🇸📉
The annual US inflation rate last month fell to 2.9%, the lowest it's been in three years!

What has gone down?
Gas prices, clothing prices, and new and used car prices.

Did the cost of everything fall?
Nope, Americans are still struggling with food prices, which remain 21% above where they were three years ago.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-interest-rates-economy-federal-reserve-f8de2672173407d3a126cc13493fed85

🌳 A 151-year-old banyan tree damaged by wildfires in Hawaii last year has survived and is showing signs of recovery!

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/07/banyan-tree-recovery-wildfire-lahaina-maui

🥳Scientists have developed a new weapon against HIV!

💉The shot could permanently keep HIV at low levels, stopping the virus from developing into AIDS as well as transmission to another person.

👍Next steps? Human trials.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/science/engineered-virus-steals-proteins-from-hiv.html

"If I were asked to list the major intellectual breakthroughs of the last half-century, I would certainly include the revolution in our understanding of emotion," writes TPN member David Brooks.

Opinion | You’re Only as Smart as Your Emotions We now understand that our emotions are often wise. The problem is that our culture and our institutions haven’t caught up with our knowledge.

😍3 Things That Went Right😍
🚆America's first zero-emissions, hydrogen-powered hybrid train is coming to San Bernardino.
👃The FDA has approved the first nasal spray alternative to an EpiPen.
🇧🇷Severe food insecurity in Brazil last year dropped by 85%.

Need more? Read on!

https://theprogressnetwork.org/opioid-deaths-decline/

💰💼The Daily Dose via Stateline 💰💼
11 US states (and DC) now require employers to disclose wages in job postings, and some of them bar employers from asking a job candidate about their salary history.

These pay transparency laws are an effort to combat unjust wage gaps.

Source: https://stateline.org/2024/07/10/more-states-enact-salary-transparency-laws-to-fight-gender-racial-pay-gaps/

⭐️The first ever lab-grown endangered starfish (or sea star) have been released in the wild!

🤞“No one’s ever done this before with this age of star or with any captive-bred star before, so we have no idea what to expect,” said researchers at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Labs.

Source: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/lab-grown-starfish-washington

"Researchers have found, for example, that on the highest-performing corporate teams, members gave 5.6 compliments for every criticism of their peers," writes TPN member Arthur Brooks.

However, he notes, "But done poorly, compliments can be ineffective, even destructive."

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/give-great-compliment-happiness/679447/