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01 / 05
1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

Blog Post | Human Development

1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

A necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.

Malcolm Cochran —

Reading the news can leave you depressed and misinformed. It’s partisan, shallow, and, above all, hopelessly negative. As Steven Pinker from Harvard University quipped, “The news is a nonrandom sample of the worst events happening on the planet on a given day.”

So, why does Human Progress feature so many news items? And why did I compile them in this giant list? Here are a few reasons:

  • Negative headlines get more clicks. Promoting positive stories provides a necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.
  • Statistics are vital to a proper understanding of the world, but many find anecdotes more compelling.
  • Many people acknowledge humanity’s progress compared to the past but remain unreasonably pessimistic about the present—not to mention the future. Positive news can help improve their state of mind.
  • We have agency to make the world better. It is appropriate to recognize and be grateful for those who do.

Below is a nonrandom sample (n = ~1000) of positive news we collected this year, separated by topic area. Please scroll, skim, and click. Or—to be even more enlightened—read this blog post and then look through our collection of long-term trends and datasets.

Agriculture

Aquaculture

Farming robots and drones

Food abundance

Genetic modification

Indoor farming

Lab-grown produce

Pollination

Other innovations

Conservation and Biodiversity

Big cats

Birds

Turtles

Whales

Other comebacks

Forests

Reefs

Rivers and lakes

Surveillance and discovery

Rewilding and conservation

De-extinction

Culture and tolerance

Gender equality

General wellbeing

LGBT

Treatment of animals

Energy and natural Resources

Fission

Fusion

Fossil fuels

Other energy

Recycling and resource efficiency

Resource abundance

Environment and pollution

Climate change

Disaster resilience

Air pollution

Water pollution

Growth and development

Education

Economic growth

Housing and urbanization

Labor and employment

Health

Cancer

Disability and assistive technology

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Diabetes

Heart disease and stroke

Other non-communicable diseases

HIV/AIDS

Malaria

Other communicable diseases

Maternal care

Fertility and birth control

Mental health and addiction

Weight and nutrition

Longevity and mortality 

Surgery and emergency medicine

Measurement and imaging

Health systems

Other innovations

Freedom

    Technology 

    Artificial intelligence

    Communications

    Computing

    Construction and manufacturing

    Drones

    Robotics and automation

    Autonomous vehicles

    Transportation

    Other innovations

    Science

    AI in science

    Biology

    Chemistry and materials

      Physics

      Space

      Violence

      Crime

      War

      The Economist | Leisure

      Millennials Spend More Time than past Generations with Their Children

      “Americans are having fewer children than ever before. In 2024 the fertility rate was just 1.6 babies per woman, down from 1.9 a decade ago. This is partly because people are becoming parents later in life; some may be discouraged by the costs of housing and child care. Whatever the cause, those who do have children are spending more time with them than previous generations did—and fathers account for much of the recent increase.

      The trend is not new. One study found that between 1965 and 2012 the amount of time parents in rich countries spent with their children doubled. Data from the American Heritage Time Use Study, from 1975 to 2018, show that successive generations have devoted ever more time to their little ones. Millennial mothers (born between 1981 and 1996) spent 12% more time caring for children than Gen-X mums (1965-80) did at the same age. The difference between young Gen-X and baby-boomer mothers (1946-64) was 52%. Millennial fathers, meanwhile, spent 6% more time on child care than Gen-Xers did. The biggest jump was between boomer and Gen-X dads: young Gen-X fathers spent more than twice as much time with their kids as their predecessors did at the same age.

      Since the pandemic the amount of time fathers spend with children has risen further. According to newer time-use data, men who lived with their partners spent 11% more time caring for children in 2024 than in 2019, and 30% more time doing household chores.”

      From The Economist.

      New York Times | Treatment of Animals

      Could Weight Loss Drugs Turn Fat Cats Into Svelte Ozempets?

      “In just a few short years, new diabetes and weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have taken the world by storm. In the United States, one in eight adults say they’ve tried one of these medications, which are known as GLP-1 drugs, and that number seems sure to rise as prices fall and new oral formulations hit the market.

      Fluffy and Fido could be next.

      On Tuesday, Okava Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, is set to announce that it has officially begun a pilot study of a GLP-1 drug for cats with obesity. The company is testing a novel approach: Instead of receiving weekly injections of the drugs, as has been common in human patients, the cats will get small, injectable implants, slightly larger than a microchip, that will slowly release the drug for as long as six months…

      Results are expected next summer. If they are promising, they could represent the next frontier for a class of drugs that has upended human medicine, and a potentially transformative treatment option for millions of pets.  Some veterinarians have already begun administering human GLP-1 drugs, off label, to diabetic cats.”

      From New York Times.

      New York Times | Scientific Research

      Newly Discovered Origami Patterns Put the Bloom on the Fold

      “Researchers have now found a new class of origami that they call bloom patterns. Resembling idealized flowers, many bloom patterns are rotationally symmetric around the center.

      The bloom patterns, with their set of attractive properties, appear promising for future engineering uses, especially for large structures that are sent to outer space. They fold up flat and compactly, they can be constructed out of one flat sheet, and they can be extended to ever larger shapes.

      The discoveries originated from the paper-folding explorations of Zhongyuan Wang, a sophomore at Brigham Young University in Utah…

      The bloom patterns can be broken down into repeating tiles of creased patterns, called wedges, around a central polygon. Larger structures, which can still be folded flat, are created by expanding the wedges into larger shapes with additional creases. When folded up, the wedges stack up in a helical shape.

      Dr. Howell said that a search through the scientific literature turned up a few individual bloom patterns that had been folded previously, but the new paper provides a general mathematical framework that describes a new class of possible foldings…

      Dr. Howell’s research group has made physical manifestations of the bloom patterns, not just out of paper but also from other materials like 3-D printed plastics.

      Real-world applications, like solar panels, will not be as thin as paper, and the folds may need to be wider to accommodate the thickness of the tiles. Still, the fundamental flat-folding nature of bloom patterns means that it should be easier to pack a structure into the limited space of a rocket.”

      From New York Times.

      Wall Street Journal | Science & Technology

      Voice Startup ElevenLabs Launches AI Music Service

      “Startup ElevenLabs said it has launched a new service called Eleven Music that lets individuals and businesses generate their own music with its artificial intelligence model.

      Users enter a prompt in plain English, such as ‘create a smooth jazz song with a ‘60s vibe and powerful lyrics, but relaxing for a Friday afternoon,’ and the startup’s AI model generates a tune within minutes, complete with vocals and instrumentals.

      With the launch, ElevenLabs—best known for its voice generation software—enters a fraught sphere where major music labels have already sued two music-generation startups, Suno and Udio, for their alleged use of copyrighted works to train their AI.

      ElevenLabs Co-founder and Chief Executive Mati Staniszewski said the three-year-old startup has a deal with Merlin Network, a digital rights agency for independent labels, to train its model on artists’ work whose rights are represented by Merlin. ElevenLabs has a similar deal with Kobalt Music Group, an independent rights management and music publishing firm.”

      From Wall Street Journal.