Weekly Progress Roundup

The global march of progress has resumed

The early 2020s were not a great time for human progress—or Human Progress. The world felt like it was falling to pieces, and no one was really interested in hearing about how good we have it compared to a few decades or centuries ago.

Thankfully, that period of partial regress is now behind us.

Global life expectancy, a solid proxy for overall human well-being, reached an all-time high in 2023, with further growth expected in 2024. World Bank estimates suggest that global poverty has fallen below its 2019 level, and the world is richer than ever. Deaths from HIV and tuberculosis, among humanity’s deadliest enemies, are trending downward.

Not everything is rosy. Undernourishment and conflict deaths, for instance, have risen since the pandemic began. In general, however, the global march of progress has resumed.

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Energy & Environment:

• Crop-Spraying Robot Is Designed to Reduce Emissions

• Why Scientists Are Drilling into Volcanos

• Plants Are Absorbing More CO2 than Previously Thought

• Giant Fish Thought to Be Extinct Is Spotted in the Mekong River

• Solar Power Is Bringing Light – And TV – To Amazon Villages

• Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers Recover in Southeast US

• The Doomsday Plant Vault Gets Thousands of New Seeds

• Gorilla Population Recovery in Rwanda

Health & Demographics:

• Science Is Finding Ways to Regenerate Your Heart

• GLP-1s Are Among the Most Important Drug Breakthroughs

• Doctors Trial mRNA Vaccine Against Vomiting Bug Norovirus

• Cross-Border Polio Vaccination Reaches 6.5 Million Children

Science & Technology:

• AI and Radar Seek to Unsnarl a 500-Year-Old Traffic Jam

• Robot Performs the Cello with a Symphony Orchestra

• AI Reveals How Sperm Sticks to Egg During Fertilization

• DNA “Printing Press” Could Quickly Store Mountains of Data

Tweets:

• More than a quarter of all new code at Google is now generated by AI

• Poisoned candy and other irrational fears

• Robot folds laundry