Doomslayer: Weekly Progress Roundup

Jul 20, 2025

A recent national survey of multidimensional child poverty in Rwanda, which took into account factors related to health, education, water, sanitation, and housing, found that the share of Rwandan children aged 5 to 14 living in multidimensional poverty fell from 25 percent to 12 percent between 2017 and 2024.
According to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2025 report, 40 percent of adults in developing economies saved money in a financial account in 2024, up from 24 percent just three years earlier.

Energy & Environment

For more than a century, Germany’s Emscher river carried sewage and industrial sludge through the Ruhr, earning a reputation as an open sewer. Now, after a massive cleanup, the river is becoming a thriving ecosystem once again.
5,765 hectares of new woodland have been planted in England over the past year, 27 percent more than the year before.

Diamond mines are floundering as lab-grown diamonds flood the market and prices plummet. One fifth of all diamond jewelry sold worldwide is now made using synthetic stones, including most new engagement rings in the US.
From Silk Stockings to Synthetic Diamonds
Marian L Tupy
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May 21
In his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter explained one of the most important characteristics of free market economies. He wrote:
Read full story
Japan’s Kansai utility is planning to start geological surveys for a new nuclear reactor. If completed, it would be the first reactor built in Japan since the Fukushima accident.

To help mitigate future seismic disasters, Japan has built a sprawling undersea earthquake-detection system capable of providing up to 20 additional minutes of warning time before tsunamis hit coastal areas. During Fukushima, residents had just 10 minutes of warning.
Google is using motion sensors in over two billion Android phones to detect earthquakes. Between 2021 and 2024, their system picked up more than 11,000 tremors and now provides early warnings in 98 countries, many of which lack traditional seismometer networks.
The Wall Street Journal recently spotlighted a housing development in Florida cleverly designed to minimize the risk of flooding. An interesting watch.

Eight babies have been born in the UK using DNA from three people to prevent a deadly inherited disease. The technique replaces faulty mitochondria from the mother’s egg with healthy ones from a donor, while keeping the parents’ nuclear DNA intact.
In 2024, 85 percent of infants worldwide received a full course of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine, a slight improvement over 2023.
Senegal has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem.

Uber and Baidu are teaming up to bring autonomous taxis to the world. Baidu’s robotaxis, which have already logged more than 11 million rides in China, will start appearing on Uber’s app later this year across Asia and the Middle East.
Netflix has used generative AI in an original series for the first time. In the Argentine sci-fi show El Eternauta, the company employed AI to create a building-collapse scene, completing it 10 times faster and at a lower cost than traditional visual effects would allow.