Doomslayer: Progress Roundup

Nov 30, 2025

Economics & Development

The Farm Bureau estimates that the price of a modest Thanksgiving dinner for ten was $55 this year in the United States, down 5 percent since last year and 14 percent since 2022. It looks even better after accounting for wage growth: The economist Jeremy Horpedahl finds that, as a share of median weekly earnings, this Thanksgiving was the most affordable on record.

Nov 20

The time price of a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people has dropped 45.3 percent, from 3.22 hours in 1986 to 1.76 hours today.

It’s also getting cheaper to store the leftovers. According to another analysis from Horpedahl, the hours of work required to purchase a refrigerator fell from 163 to 33 between 1984 and 2024, part of a broader trend of improving appliance affordability.

Measles cases have surged worldwide since 2019, but deaths are still way down. According to the World Health Organization, the annual number of measles deaths fell 88 percent between 2000 and 2024, saving an estimated 59 million lives.
A growing body of research suggests that CAR-T therapy—originally developed for cancer—can push severe autoimmune diseases into long-lasting remission. In a number of recent studies, patients with conditions such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and ulcerative colitis have reportedly seen their symptoms disappear after treatment.
An experimental gene therapy has delivered promising results in a three-year-old boy with Hunter syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that can cause physical disability, cognitive decline, and early death. Doctors harvested his stem cells, inserted a working copy of the missing gene, and infused the corrected cells back into his body. Nine months later, the boy no longer needs enzyme infusions—the standard therapy for Hunter syndrome—and is showing improved speech, movement, and cognitive development.
Researchers in Canada and the US have extended survival for people with glioblastoma, one of the deadliest brain cancers, by pairing chemotherapy with a targeted ultrasound technique that briefly opens the blood–brain barrier. In a small clinical trial, the approach raised median survival from about 19 months to over 30.

Scientists at UC Davis have created wheat that releases higher levels of apigenin, a plant compound that helps soil bacteria pull nitrogen out of the air, potentially reducing the need for synthetic fertilizer.
Researchers at CERN have developed a new technique that can produce over 15 thousand antihydrogen atoms in just a few hours, a major improvement over earlier methods, which typically generated a few thousand atoms over an entire day. The new method could make antimatter experiments much faster and allow researchers to collect higher-quality data.
Uber has begun offering fully driverless rides in Abu Dhabi through a partnership with the Chinese autonomous-vehicle company WeRide. It’s the Middle East’s first commercial robotaxi service with no safety driver on board.