Doomslayer: Weekly Progress Roundup

Billions gain access to safe water and sanitation.

Economics & Development

• The latest WHO/UNICEF report on water and sanitation contains some impressive figures. Between 2015 and 2024, 961 million people gained access to safe drinking water,¹ 1.2 billion gained safe sanitation,² and 1.5 billion gained basic hygiene services.³

Energy & Environment

Conservation and biodiversity

• The Roanoke logperch, a fish once confined to just 14 streams, has recovered enough to be removed from the US endangered species list.

• American Crocodiles are pushing northward, returning to their historic range.

Energy & Natural Resources

• Solar panel imports are accelerating in Africa. According to Ember, an energy think tank, this is “the first evidence of a take-off in solar” on the continent.

  

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Health & Demographics

• The global childhood leukemia death rate fell nearly 60 percent between 1990 and 2021, along with a similar reduction in disability-adjusted life years, a measure of years lost to illness, disability, or early death.

• Researchers have found that a small share of HIV-positive infants who receive antiretroviral therapy go into sustained remission. Now, trials are underway to explore this phenomenon and test whether combining early treatment with vaccines or antibodies can help even more infected children.

• Fortune recently profiled Noland Arbaugh, the first person to receive a Neuralink brain implant. Arbaugh, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down thanks to a swimming accident, has been able to play video games, enroll in classes, and give public talks thanks to the brain implant, which lets him control a computer with his thoughts.

Science & Technology

• After a series of failures, Starship’s tenth test flight finally succeeded, reaching space, deploying mock satellites, and testing a new heat shield before splashing both stages down in the ocean.

• Scientists have engineered a supplement that helped honeybees produce up to 15 times more larvae in trials.

• Thanks to a growing number of robot-leasing firms, some small US factories are renting robots at roughly the hourly cost of human workers, helping improve workplace safety and efficiency.

Violence & Coercion

• One silver lining to the worrying decline in teenage socializing is a concurrent drop in the teen crime rate. Data compiled by the sociologist James Tuttle suggests that Gen Z is, by a large margin, the least criminal American generation in living memory.

  

  

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1. “In order to meet the criteria for a safely managed drinking water service, households must use an improved source that is: accessible on premises, available when needed, and free from contamination.”

2. “People should use improved sanitation facilities which are not shared with other households, and the excreta produced should either be treated and disposed of in situ, stored temporarily and then emptied and treated off-site, or transported through a sewer with wastewater and then treated off-site.”

3. “Households with a handwashing facility with soap and water available on-premises meet the criteria for a basic hygiene service.”