Doomslayer: Weekly Progress Roundup

Jun 29, 2025

A new report from UBS claims that there were 52 million people with a net worth between $1 million and $5 million in 2024. That’s 2.5 times as many as there were in 2000 after adjusting for inflation.

Energy & Environment

Mexico’s Pacific islands are witnessing a remarkable seabird comeback. Of 27 seabird populations that had vanished from these islands, 22 have returned in the past decade, thanks to conservation efforts like removing invasive species and restoring habitats. Additionally, four new species, including the Blue-footed Booby and Caspian Tern, have begun nesting in the region.
Zoo-raised northern leopard frogs have survived their first winter in the wild at Washington’s Columbia National Wildlife Refuge—a hopeful step toward restoring the species to its native range.
Wolverines are making a comeback in Southern Finland, where they were extirpated in the 19th century.
Since 2007, the tiger population has grown fivefold in Thailand's Western Forest Complex, a conservation area along the Myanmar border.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced plans to construct the state's first new nuclear power plant in decades.

A London startup has developed a device that captures up to 78 percent of carbon emissions from cargo ship exhausts using quicklime pellets. Designed to fit into standard shipping containers, these units can be swapped out at ports, offering a practical retrofit solution for existing fleets. The company aims to deploy its first full-scale systems this year.
Cattle farmers often dispose of cow dung by allowing it to decompose in large open-air ponds, a process that generates significant methane emissions. Scientists in New Zealand have discovered a potential solution: adding polyferric sulfate, a common wastewater treatment chemical, to the ponds cuts methane emissions by more than 90 percent by disrupting the food supply of methane-producing microbes.

Global grain production is on track to reach an all-time high of 3.6 billion tons in the 2025–26 season, helping bring down food prices. Wheat, maize, and rice are now 20 percent, 2 percent, and 31 percent cheaper than a year ago, respectively.
Indonesia’s childhood stunting rate fell from 21.5 percent in 2023 to 19.8 percent in 2024.

CAR T-cell therapy, which is already revolutionizing cancer treatment, is also showing promise against lupus.
Drug overdose deaths among Americans under 35 fell by half between 2021 and 2024, from over 31,000 to around 16,700.
US heart attack deaths are down nearly 90 percent since 1970, though deaths from other heart conditions—such as arrhythmias, heart failure, and hypertensive heart disease—have risen.
Rwanda reduced chronic hepatitis B prevalence from 3 percent in 2015 to just 0.25 percent in 2024.
Childhood pneumonia deaths in Nepal have fallen 20-fold since the 1980s, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
A new study analyzing data from over 62,000 adults aged 70 and older across the U.S., England, and parts of Europe suggests that younger generations are less likely to develop dementia at the same age as their parents or grandparents.

DeepMind has just released AlphaGenome, an AI model designed to predict how DNA mutations affect gene regulation. Unlike previous models, AlphaGenome can analyze the impact of genetic variants in the non-coding regions of the genome, which contain more than 98 percent of human DNA and play a key role in controlling how genes are switched on and off.
Deepmind also unveiled an AI model that allows robots to accomplish complex tasks, like like folding clothes or unzipping bags, without an internet connection.
Tesla launched its first commercial robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, last Sunday.
An astronomical observatory in Chile has begun a decade-long project to create the most detailed map of the night sky ever made. Using the world’s largest digital camera, the Vera Rubin Observatory will scan the entire southern sky every few nights—tracking billions of stars and galaxies, along with millions of solar system objects, including asteroids and possibly the hypothesized Planet Nine.
The aerospace company Beta Technologies recently flew one of its prototype all-electric aircraft from East Hampton Airport on Long Island to John F. Kennedy International Airport. The 45-minute flight had an energy cost of just $7. According to Beta Technologies, a helicopter making the same trip would have burned $160 of fuel.

Crime analyst Jeff Asher claims that US crime rates are on track to reach historic lows in 2025. Data from the first four months of the year indicate that violent crime has decreased by 11 percent, property crime by 13.8 percent, and murders by 21.6 percent compared to the same period in 2024. If these trends continue, 2025 could see the lowest murder rate ever recorded.
After peaking in 2009, the US prison population has fallen by more than 400,000 and could shrink by another 600,000 over the next decade—cutting the incarceration rate by 60 percent from its peak. The decline reflects decades of falling crime and a demographic shift, as fewer young people enter the justice system and older cohorts age out of criminal behavior.