Doomslayer: Progress Roundup
Investment in South Africa, a new sodium-cooled nuclear reactor, $100 genome sequencing, and more.
Economics & Development
Operation Vulindlela, a South African deregulatory initiative, appears to be stimulating private investment in the country. Recently announced private infrastructure projects total 382.5 billion rand (23 billion USD), more than triple the amount recorded in 2024.
Energy & Environment
Conservationists suspect that wild California condors have laid an egg in Northern California for the first time in more than a century, suggesting the population is beginning to breed on its own. After decades of conservation work, the endangered species has rebounded from near-extinction to more than 600 birds.
A coral breeding lab in the Seychelles has recorded its first coral spawning event, a milestone for efforts to restore damaged reefs. Most coral breeding projects rely on cloning coral fragments, but spawning can produce more genetically diverse and resilient corals.
The nuclear power company TerraPower has received a permit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a sodium-cooled reactor in Wyoming, the first approval for a non-water-cooled commercial reactor in decades. Sodium cooling allows reactors to operate at higher temperatures and lower pressures than conventional water-cooled plants, which can improve efficiency. The design will also include thermal storage, allowing the reactor to store energy as heat during periods of low demand.
Health & Demographics
A new working paper suggests that remote work may help boost fertility. Using survey data from 38 high- and middle-income countries, the researchers found that couples who work from home at least one day a week have about 0.32 more children on average than those who don’t.
Undernourishment is falling again in Latin America and the Caribbean. 5.1 percent of people in the region were undernourished in 2024, down from 6.1 percent in 2020, but still slightly above the historic low in 2014.
After 30 years without a locally contracted case, Chile has been verified by the WHO for eliminating leprosy.
More than 200,000 children in Nigeria’s Kebbi State have received the R21 malaria vaccine, and local health centers report a 50 percent drop in malaria diagnoses since the vaccination campaign began.
Science & Technology
Aurora Innovation, a self-driving truck company, has expanded its network to 10 routes, including a 1,000-mile circuit between Fort Worth, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona. On such long routes, the company says its trucks can cut transit times in half by avoiding regulations that limit the number of hours a human trucker can drive continuously.
The market analyst Daniel Marques found that Waymo’s recently disclosed remote operator ratio is far lower than that of its Chinese competitors.
A San Diego biotech startup claims its new gene-sequencing system can read an entire human genome for about $100.
Violence & Coercion
Croatia is officially free of landmines set during its 1990s war of independence.
YOU REPORT : "A new working paper suggests that remote work may help boost fertility. Using survey data from 38 high-and middle-income countries , the researchers found that couples who work from home at least one day a week have about 0.32 more children on average than those who don’t."..................................SERIOUSLY ???????
You don't think that rather than "REMOTE WORK" it is the actual "PROXIMITY" of being 'at home'
together , unmolested by children [ at school , in daycare , at Grandma's place etc ], with more energy ON THAT ONE DAY EACH WEEK that might be "doing it" ????????
They say " Familiarity breeds contempt........but then again.......it breeds everything else as well ! "