Doomslayer: Progress Roundup

Jul 19, 2026

Economics & Development

According to the World Bank, the number of economies with high levels of inequality, defined as having a Gini coefficient greater than 40, fell by 40 percent between 1995 and 2024. The Gini coefficient measures how unevenly incomes are distributed across a population, with zero representing perfect equality and 100 representing a situation in which one person receives everything.

The latest Energy Progress Report, jointly produced by five international agencies, contains some impressive figures:
- 92 percent of the world’s population had access to electricity in 2024, up from 84 percent in 2010. About 86 percent of those still without electricity lived in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- 75 percent of the global population had access to clean cooking fuels in 2024, up from 57 percent in 2010.
- Global primary energy intensity—the amount of energy used per unit of economic output—fell from approximately 4.75 megajoules per 2021 purchasing power parity-adjusted dollar of GDP in 2010 to 3.76 megajoules in 2023, a decline of about 21 percent.

The co-founder of The Humpback Whale Project, a Brazilian research and conservation nonprofit, estimates that the western South Atlantic humpback population has grown from around 2,000 whales four decades ago to roughly 35,000 today, approaching or possibly matching its estimated pre-commercial whaling abundance.
The New York Times recently reported on a research center in South Carolina that burns houses to better understand how wildfires spread through neighborhoods. Funded by the insurance industry, the research identifies the physical mechanisms that allow flames and embers to ignite buildings and is helping inform building standards and wildfire-mitigation programs across the country.

The European Union is substantially loosening its restrictions on certain gene-edited crops. Last month, the European Parliament passed a law that will allow plants with genetic modifications that could occur naturally or through conventional breeding to bypass the EU’s onerous approval process for genetically modified organisms. The new regulatory process is expected to take effect in around two years.

Fewer teenagers are dying in motor-vehicle crashes in the United States. According to data from the US Department of Transportation, 2,899 teenagers died in crashes in 2024, 67 percent fewer than in 1975, though motor-vehicle crashes remained the leading cause of death for US teens.
Hospital-acquired infections have become less common in the US. A CDC survey of 13,653 patients at 218 hospitals found that 2.6 percent had at least one infection acquired during care in 2023, down from 3.2 percent in 2015. Over the same period, the estimated annual number of infections fell from 687,000 to 518,000.
The FDA has approved a pill that blocks PCSK9, a protein that limits the liver’s ability to remove LDL cholesterol from the blood. In trials, the drug lowered LDL cholesterol by roughly 60 percent. Injectable drugs that treat high cholesterol the same way are already approved but carry list prices of around $500 per month. The new pill will be listed at $315 per month.
El Salvador has become the first country in Central America to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem. Trachoma is an eye infection that can cause blindness after several untreated infections.

The Federal Communications Commission has approved a test flight of a satellite designed to reflect sunlight to the dark side of the Earth, potentially useful for harvesting solar energy at night or simply illuminating an area without the need for electric lighting. The prototype satellite, Eärendil-1, is equipped with a 60-foot mirror that can light up a three-mile-wide circle on the Earth’s surface.
Drones are now assisting with a variety of public services:
- In Australia, land managers used drones to clear an island of mice, and authorities are employing drone pilots to help warn beachgoers about great white sharks.
- In India, a pilot program is using drones to rapidly transport phlegm samples from rural areas to laboratories for tuberculosis testing, helping patients avoid costly trips to distant testing centers.
- During recent floods in China, rescue operators used drones to deliver emergency supplies and hoist stranded people to safety.