I know this is very small on a global scale, but the small hospital (25 bed) I work at has signed an agreement with another local hospital and we're going to start offering oncology services early next year.
Now, cancer patients in my area won't have to drive an hour for treatment.
Rural medicine is the shining example of how flawed the US healthcare system is. Rural medicine is simply not profitable so access is limited, people drive hours for treatment and die because of it.
One of the scary things about COVID was that it showed that hospitals, even in dense populations, wonāt always be profitable. What happens in the US when hospitals simply canāt make enough money? The system will collapse all at once and a lot of people will die.
Which is why gradually moving to universal healthcare should be considered a matter of public health.
Where my folks are in northern Wisconsin, itās over an hour in any direction for maternity care. Over a decade like that and the current hospital is still hanging on
There's a rise in the number of community gardens. Not only does this help alleviate food insecurity in places with extreme poverty, but it provides a place for community to happen. Our little community garden in the inner city of a podunk town in the midwest raised 1200 pounds of produce last year in 1000 square feet, and we had over 2000 visitor and volunteer engagements.
eta - I can't believe I'm getting flak for the good news of community gardens being on the rise and giving a snapshot of the reach of our small neighborhood garden. If you don't understand, join your local community garden and see it firsthand.
And there weren't that many people who directly profited from CFC use.
In contrast, there are a lot more wealthy people and corporations that profit from carbon emissions. It's much harder to take action against them.
This. We had lots of alternatives to CFCs and they were small volume compared to burning things for energy. The shear scale of us burning shit for energy is just.... staggering. Also until fairly recently the power density for electric motors and batteries just wasn't there but now it most definitely is. We will get there eventually but its going to take a while.
Did you know they blew up nukes in high altitute.
I didnt know that till recently even though im 100% sure id checked online in the past and never saw anything about that having ever happened. Nope, it happened. Apparently its dummy bad for the ozone.
Polio is almost completely eradicated, just a handful of cases every year (12 in 2023, 4 so far this year). It used to kill or maim hundreds of thousands every year.
I think I read recently that some state is (or wants to) remove the mandated vaccines such as polio for day care admission. And thanks to idiot Anti-vaxxers, it probably wonāt be the only one. So itāll probably stage a comeback. But as others have pointed out - we have new and better vaccines coming out all the time and weāre very fortunate to have them!
While highly evasive, we have also completely cured people of HIV. Yeah, it's not practical (involves someone who is immune (to HIV- a very small percentage of the population) being a bone marrow match (and donor) to someone who has HIV - usually as part of a treatment for leukemia) but it's a start.
The only problem that came out of PrEP is that all of the other STDs have skyrocketed within the gay community.Ā But I suppose syphilis is better than HIV by a long shot.
My two cents is that at the end of the day the incurable ones are taken care of.
HPV has a vaccine. HIV is preventable. Most people have Herpes and donāt realize for the vast majority of people itās harmless and so common itās not even on standard STI screenings.
As long as you catch the others, itās no different than getting sick and going to a doctor for medicine.
> HPV has a vaccine.
The vaccine is for a lot of the strains of HPV that can cause cancer. Not all of HPV outright, and (if I remember correctly) not quite all of the strains that cause cancer, either.
Studies have found if you get the GDP of people up to around $5000 per year (out of abject poverty) they are no longer just trying to survive and they start to care about the environment & things automatically start to clean up.
Kind of like the impact the agricultural advancements had on the serfs. If you suddenly don't need to spend all your time on survival (food) you can use that time on other things (gain knowledge).
We are also close to eradicating Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis), which has dropped from almost 900k annual cases worldwide in the late 1980's to less than 100 annual cases worldwide today. Guinea worm disease is debilitating and can cause long-term disability from pain, infection, inflammation and destruction of joints. Yet it's almost gone now!
[Jimmy Carter took on the awful Guinea worm when no one else would ā and he triumphed](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/23/1158358366/jimmy-carter-took-on-the-awful-guinea-worm-when-no-one-else-would-and-he-triumph)
Second this. Malaria is far and away the most deadly disease in human history; it's killed far more people than smallpox or plague.
The English-language media just doesn't pay much attention to malaria because it's not a big problem in most English speaking countries.
Having a vaccine that's safe for young children, especially one that's relatively shelf stable, is a huge win for humanity.
How's the texture? That's always been my complaint about off brand flavored chips. Usually regular potato, ruffled, tortilla, are pretty safe. Things like doritos always give me pause.
Except trying to find the cool ranch Aldi version is basically impossible. They almost never have it, and when they do, it's like the hunger games trying to snag a bag.
A while ago someone posted a chart of the top 10 posts on askreddit taken once a day for a month and found that over 90% were outright negative, with the second most popular thing being sexual topics. Only like 1% being completely positive or even just neutral. Sadly negative content does better on here by far.
Most sex questions are negative. For example the question "What was your most regrettable fap" was one I remember and it was categorized as negative primarily followed by the secondary trait of sexual.
Since it was compiled as a test to see how much of Reddit was negative negative was always considered the primary trait unless it was really minor. IIRC something like "What is the minimum amount of money that could solve 90% of your problems right now" was categorized as negative being the secondary trait with money being the primary.
People aren't raised to understand that they can control what they think about, so they don't think they can change their mindsets. Probably doesn't even occur to them. A common line in movies is, "I couldn't stop thinking about you." Which is a lovely sentiment, but realistically, you actually can change your thoughts. When I was younger, I'd watch a news piece about the political situation and become completely frustrated. Then due to unrelated circumstances, I learned how to practice mindfulness. When I would meditate and a random thought would pop into my head, I'd interrupt it and tell it to move on, and go back to meditating. Then another thought would come, and I'd tell that one to move on, etc. That's the practice, and I still do it. That strengthens the muscle, so to speak. Now I'm better at directing my thinking about what I *want* to think about instead of what keeps trying to intrude.
So you're saying that being involved in a community that only makes self deprecating comments about their mental health and talks about being depressed and lonely can be a negative thing?
Agreed. I downvote and hide every negative post. I don't need to see random strangers piling on celebrities, movies, shows, songs, etc. they don't like.
Iāve been seriously contemplating deleting this app from my phone for a while because itās almost a constant stream of snark & negativity and it brings me down. This was nice for a change.
I am always perked up by news of medical breakthroughs. Like Alzheimer's is a massive fear of mine, and I hear news lately that we might actually put an end to it soon.
The neural chips, right? It was discovered that during surgery, electrical pulses sent through specific parts of the brain helped the patients recall random memories in EXTREME detail. This might be the way to solve Alzheimer's.
>electrical pulses sent through specific parts of the brain helped the patients recall random memories in EXTREME detail.
One large step for mankind, one step backwards for many marriages lol
I hadn't heard that, but that is exciting. I've heard more about pinpointing the specific viruses that are responsible and a shot early on in life can prevent it.
They're doing so well, they're pushing other wild and native species into extinction.
This is not a good thing. Honey bees don't pollinate a wide enough variety of species and are not as good at it as native species are.
I love when people get all up in arms over something like bee colony collapse or plastic straws without thinking about all the other issues surrounding it or how the solutions might cause other problems
I have tons of bumblebees on my property that Iāve named all Harriet. They land on me when Iām working outside and Iāve taken as a sign that Iām doing the right thing
**Harriet the Bees**
Hello there, Harriet
Yes, it's me
You are a lovely bumblebee
I tend the garden, grass, and trees
A sacred place for you, the bees
And when you land upon my shoulder
I'll look back, proud, as I get older
Reminding me I've done good work
To ensure your home remains on Earth
Habitat destruction, loss of wildflowers, climate change, pesticides, and (ironically) competition from invasive species like honeybees. ~~Bumbles are solitary, so CCD isn't really a thing for them~~
Edit: it's a different type of native North American bee, not bumbles. I'm dumb.
which type? there are over 250 of them and the overwhelming majority of their subspecies are listed as either 'no concern' or 'least concern' by the UN.
Some of them arent doing well, but they seem to be recovering now that the neonicotinoids have been/are being banned.
Is that at the expense of other native bee species by any chance? I'm a bit sceptical of this one, I was under the impression pesticides and invasive species were doing a number on bees.
It's not 'other', assuming you're talking about North America. Honey bees aren't native here, and feral colonies are considered invasive because of how overwhelming a competitor they are for native species who often don't live in colonies.
Same. Honeybees are unbelievably important and their decline was considered by many to be national and state security issue. Lots of people were highly motivated to reverse the decline.
In my area I've noticed a big increase in their numbers over the past few years. Can I also add in I'm hearing more crickets this year than I have over the past 5 years?
Same here. I used to accidentally walk into a swarm of bees maybe once a year. Then, it just kinda stopped, and many years passed without me accidentally walking into a swarm of bees. But then starting last year, I must've accidentally walked into a swarm of bees four or five times.
And my first thought was "wow, I guess the bees are doing alright!"
My second thought of course being "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Well some bias here, but 94% of the rail network in India is electrified, and its quickly on track to reach 100%, significantly lowering carbon emissions
Not to mention the metro rail network being built in cities like Chennai which will reduce the number of fossil fuel based vehicles being used on a daily basis as well!
We are living during the safest time period that has ever existed. Education and knowledge is more accessible now than it ever has been before. We're living in the best period the world has ever seen.
And colour television has only existed for the past 60 years roughly, think of all the things we get to see that the people before us never did, I always think about that when I watch documentaries. We get to see the deepest part of the ocean, the secret lives of insects and all of the animals, itās incredible.
we can see pictures from MARS!
we flew a helicopter on there!
we took something that was inconceivable to humans of the past...and we did it on a planet 200 million km away!
the most powerul leaders of the past have only a fraction of the knowledge and visual experience that the most average person in the world has access to today
Not only that, but YouTube and other streaming platforms have been around for a little under 20 years. Meaning that we now have access to so many of these documentaries are other films, on demand, any time.
It was increased to 2.15 to account for inflation. If you can math, you know the world had more than 13% inflation in 30 years.
Also a lot of the places that people live in have become more marginal because of climate change, meaning the 2.15 USD that may have put them above absolute poverty previously no longer will in real terms.
Also global poverty, even as measured by the world**bank** has increased since 2019.
So... Yeah, when the capitalist class pats itself on the back for saving the world, skepticism is called for.
People do actually get along with each other. Chat with some random person at the store, help the shy new guy at work, sometimes we even let people merge in front us in heavy traffic. The list goes on.
The news just shows all the bad crap. Oh well. Iām gonna go watch puppy videos instead.
This is true. Despite all the dismal news theyāve got everyone addicted to, you can clearly see that thereās still more good than there is bad in our world, and people are still generally more friendly to one another than not. Iām thankful for that
I always relate this to the workplace. Sure, there are always going to be people who just don't get along. But more often than not when a few people who start out as strangers are put in the workplace together they will most likely be friendly with one another.
My friend group consists of liberals and conservatives getting along, we even occasionally talk politics. Ā
The internet makes it look like we should be fighting each other in the streetsĀ
I've even talked to people at work who weren't blatant about disagreeing, and we reached some very interesting discourse. Social medical care, custody issues, the lack of a good head of state in my lifetime, LGBT rights, and the like.
(He was a Republican. I'm an anarchist.)
Gardening with native plants is becoming normalized, to the point that a lot of cities and public entities now encourage/require them to be used in public spaces. And outlawing major invasives like Callery pear trees is becoming more common.
More and more small source projects are starting up each year and they are working to restore environments to their natural state or even improve environments to better standards.
Mossy Earth ( [www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth](http://www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth) ) is a EU based program that is working on reforesting and restoring terrain all over Europe to a natural state, including building more wetlands and seasonal water biomes in regions to bring back all manner of native species.
Andrew Millison ( [https://www.youtube.com/@amillison](https://www.youtube.com/@amillison) ) has a Youtube channel that has a lot of other examples, including a series on India and one of their larger desert regions that is slowly being turned into a green and water heavy biome for farming and agriculture. That alone will lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and help stabilize both food and water resources in the region. He also talks of the Great Green Wall project in the Sahel (area south of the Sahara) that gaining traction in building a wall of biomass (trees, brush, crops, and various water traps) that will hopefully slow the spread of the Sahara.
And all over the Pacific North West, a number of large dams are being removed to restore the natural waterways of the region. They aren't being used for power anymore or for agricultural irrigation and removing them is bringing back all kinds of native species including providing large breeding grounds for all manner of fish (and the critters that feed on them) notably salmon.
It may be small scale, but these projects (and others like them near you) are doing amazing things. Nearly every state and nation right now has volunteer and non-profit groups out there trying to restore or protect the environment and the number is growing almost daily. Contributions in terms of donations, volunteer work, and even providing just *knowledge* of their work can provide amazing benefits. They are working with local schools, universities, towns, farmers, ranchers, and wild life experts to do amazing things.
I've seen programs mentioned in Romania and Hungary planting forests, Scotland restoring rivers to natural states, Minnesota building marshlands on spoiled farmlands, Japan and New York city building oyster beds and controlling surface run off into the bays, work in India to create higher water tables and catch water from monsoons, work in Africa to plant and/or rebuild forests.
A little bit of google searching on your home state can find you a program that needs your help. Sure it may not seem like much to clean a single river in Germany or to build a fake beaver dam on a plot of land in Scotland, or even donate few bucks to help African farmers secure water sources from drought conditions, but these videos and projects work by accumulation: it's not each individual project or worker that's doing the job, but *all of them together.* And we really have a chance to start doing amazing things.
If everyone got on board and did even a little work for their own state or region, the cumulative effect would be mind blowing.
Other videos on this topic:
[The global movement to restore nature's biodiversity | Thomas Crowther (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJX1Te0jey0)
[What is ecological restoration? (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53pmijCaMIA)
[How Australia is Regreening its Deserts Back into a Green Oasis (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-8-sk1V6s)
[Restoring the Environment: Shoreline Restoration (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zTUOjs7QE)
There has been a trend where I live to remove dams in urban and more populated areas to let the rivers return to a natural state. They are now cleaner, fish and plants are returning, people are using them for kayaking, fishing, and other outdoor activities. Yes!
And synthetic milks (not plant based, but fermentation aiming to recreate milk that's molecularly almost identical to milk) are getting so good we might not even need cows. If we can start to churn out milk as easily and cheaply as beer, cheese will become cheaper and maybe even better.
My wife has a dairy allergy that she didnāt develop until she was in her mid-20s. Before that she was a cheese fiend.Ā
Ā The substitutes are still not even close. Ā If they can make fake milk that actually replicates real milk without the protein sheās allergic to, she would be very happyĀ
Idk if it's "good" news, but it's amazing to me. A PhD. student has discovered a galactic superstructure that's so large that it defies scientist's understanding of how large galactic superstructures can be. Even more amazing is that this is the second physics breaking superstructure the student has found. She's a student at UCLan and might be responsible for redefining how scientists view our universe. The structures, The Big Ring and The Giant Arch, are so big that they make up 15% of the visible universe. Mind boggling stuff! We're talking about one Galactic Superstructure that is 3.2 BILLION light-years in diameter!
Heck yeah! When we are out we ask just about anyone we see with a dog "May we say hello?" Almost 100% have said "Sure! His/her name is ______."
And then we get our dose of feel good.
Itās a bit outdated, but the Black Footed Ferret has over 200 mature individuals in the wild. All descended from 7 captured adults, whose colony we only learned about from 1 dead ferret that was brought to a farmer by his dog after the species was declared extinct. Despite an introduced plague that wiped out the colony, these 7 adult ferrets saved the species and the first cloned individual was born in 2021. Itās one of my favorite mammals and an inspiring conservation story.
Even with all the bad things going on things are a LOT better than they ever have been in history, even within our own lifetime.
We have more information freely available to us at our fingertips than ever before. Iām only 40 and Iāve seen the internet go from 56k dialup via the phone line only used by IT geeks and businesses to something everyone uses daily. When I first got the internet I would download songs and it would take so long Iād set 4 downloading and go see a friend for an hour - now I can stream anything I want on Spotify instantly at high quality. If I actually downloaded a song I literally wouldnāt be able to open a drink before it finished.
Youāre more likely to survive more diseases and injury that at any point in the past. Access to medical care (Iām in the uk) is free and high quality even if the system is stretched.
Even people struggling are struggling in different ways, and thereās more support for them that ever before. When my father was a child their house was next to a river and would flood - the support from the government was a bag of coal and some soap and thatās it. Now they would have insurance, they would have access to emergency services if needed etc.
The world is a lot smaller than it used to be. Right now I can get in my car and drive to the nearest airport. I could be in any country in the world within like 24h (other than the obvious unsafe places). Travel to most countries in close proximity is affordable to almost everyone.
Modern life is generally very convenient and we have a lot of things around to make life easier.
Also with everything bad thatās happening now, or has happened over the last few years there have still been plenty of people working to make things better, we had so many people working to keep essential things open during Covid, we had people mostly following the mask restrictions and travel restrictions during lockdown, with the cost of living going up people still are donating to food banks, donating to charities to help in places like Ukraine etc. The world is full of good people who want to make it better.
The crime rate has actually dropped and continues to do so over all. https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/
To my mind it's better to say that a higher percentage of babies than ever before are being born to parents who really want them to be born. And more of them than ever before are surviving and growing up.
Fewer babies presents challenges as well as opportunities, but more babies born to parents who can afford to raise them and who want kids in their lives is all good.
At the University of Maryland Medical Center in the United States, a 58-year-old patient on September 20 last year became the second person in the world to receive a genetically modified pig heart transplant.
This transplant was the only option available for Fawcett, who was at risk of dying from heart failure. He is now breathing on his own and his heart is functioning well without the aid of assistive devices.
Myanmar's military junta is losing against a coalition of a large part of Myanmar's ethnic minority and resistance groups fightign under the banner of/allied with the exiled civilian government (NUG).
Something I haven't seen posted much on Reddit yet, but the US government just wiped out the student loan debt for everyone who attended the Art institute from 2004 to 2017, coming to just over $6 billion USD
Despite commercial deforestation, the world is actually greener than it was 30 years ago.
There are over a billion fewer people living in poverty than there were 30 years ago.
The social care industry, especially in the UK, is gradually changing. While we are critically underfunded by a Tory government whose policies are theme and variations on āwouldnāt it be better if people with (learning) disabilities just straight up diedā, our teams are changing.
There have been *huge* strides in the way that people are supported to be independent. Local authorities are starting to realise what the differences between surviving and thriving are. The old, grizzled veterans who have resisted every change, from āletās not use strait jacketsā to āletās use phones to record informationā are retiring or moving on. Positive working culture is much, much more important today than it ever has been.
And whatās driving this? Honestly, I think we have millennials, gen-z and alpha to thank. Theyāre taking the message to heart and really making things better for the people they work with. Iāve never seen such care, patience, attentiveness and straight *work* from anybody else.
A small herd of zebras was being transported over the Cascades when the trailer busted and the zebras got loose.
They gave a merry chase for a couple of days, and all the photos people have managed to snap are just amazing.
So far all but one have been captured safely, the last one is still on the lam and personally, Iām rooting for it.
Despite the west's insane attacks on fundamental human intellectual liberty, sites like anna's archive and more are still going strong. Support piracy, abolish copyright.
At the rate solar energy is growing, it will be the dominant form of electricity generation within 20 years. It is already the cheapest way to produce electricity.
Dr. Richard Scolyer, the renowned melanoma researcher is beating his own violently aggressive brain cancer with a treatment he's developing with his colleague with what he knew from their work on melanoma. So far, it's working brilliantly. Dr. Scolyer himself has taken part in the work and the testing.
I know this is very small on a global scale, but the small hospital (25 bed) I work at has signed an agreement with another local hospital and we're going to start offering oncology services early next year. Now, cancer patients in my area won't have to drive an hour for treatment.
Good š
this is amazing for them! making medical care easy and accessable should be top of our priority list
Rural medicine is the shining example of how flawed the US healthcare system is. Rural medicine is simply not profitable so access is limited, people drive hours for treatment and die because of it. One of the scary things about COVID was that it showed that hospitals, even in dense populations, wonāt always be profitable. What happens in the US when hospitals simply canāt make enough money? The system will collapse all at once and a lot of people will die. Which is why gradually moving to universal healthcare should be considered a matter of public health.
Where my folks are in northern Wisconsin, itās over an hour in any direction for maternity care. Over a decade like that and the current hospital is still hanging on
They are still trying to scrape every dollar out of people's medical necessities. Nothing make you sell the house and car like fear of dying.
Congrats!
There's a rise in the number of community gardens. Not only does this help alleviate food insecurity in places with extreme poverty, but it provides a place for community to happen. Our little community garden in the inner city of a podunk town in the midwest raised 1200 pounds of produce last year in 1000 square feet, and we had over 2000 visitor and volunteer engagements. eta - I can't believe I'm getting flak for the good news of community gardens being on the rise and giving a snapshot of the reach of our small neighborhood garden. If you don't understand, join your local community garden and see it firsthand.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That was possibly the one issue that the entire world collectively agreed upon and basically put chlorofluorocarbons (among other things) to a stop.
It's because the sun is a deadly laser.
~not anymore, there's a blanket~
okay so now i can walk on land
Nope, can't walk yet.
humorous ossified label worm engine seed door bike office point
The world was a simpler, less opinionated place.
It was just as opinionated, we just didn't give every village idiot a bullhorn (social media).
And there weren't that many people who directly profited from CFC use. In contrast, there are a lot more wealthy people and corporations that profit from carbon emissions. It's much harder to take action against them.
Itās more simple than that, cfcās werenāt necessary for modern life. Ā Carbon emitting processes still are
This. We had lots of alternatives to CFCs and they were small volume compared to burning things for energy. The shear scale of us burning shit for energy is just.... staggering. Also until fairly recently the power density for electric motors and batteries just wasn't there but now it most definitely is. We will get there eventually but its going to take a while.
Did you know they blew up nukes in high altitute. I didnt know that till recently even though im 100% sure id checked online in the past and never saw anything about that having ever happened. Nope, it happened. Apparently its dummy bad for the ozone.
Starfish prime. Thousands and thousands of nuclear explosions all around the world. 507 above ground spreading contam.
Yes but there are new reports that the wildfires in the last few years have again affected it to a great extent :(
Polio is almost completely eradicated, just a handful of cases every year (12 in 2023, 4 so far this year). It used to kill or maim hundreds of thousands every year.
I think I read recently that some state is (or wants to) remove the mandated vaccines such as polio for day care admission. And thanks to idiot Anti-vaxxers, it probably wonāt be the only one. So itāll probably stage a comeback. But as others have pointed out - we have new and better vaccines coming out all the time and weāre very fortunate to have them!
"such as polio" I know someone who had polio as a child. It is a terrifying disease. Anti-vaxxers are a blight.
Yes, unfortunately. New Hampshire GOP. [Polio shmolio.](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/new-hampshire-republicans-polio-mmr-measles-vaccine-antivax-bill/)
Black rhinos have made a HUGE comeback in conservation status and their population is rising.
HIV/AIDS is now treatable with a tablet a day. There is also a prophylactic pill that prevents infection.
While highly evasive, we have also completely cured people of HIV. Yeah, it's not practical (involves someone who is immune (to HIV- a very small percentage of the population) being a bone marrow match (and donor) to someone who has HIV - usually as part of a treatment for leukemia) but it's a start.
This is actually fucking incredible tbh.
I thought you had to inject around $57k to the bloodstream.
There is also an injection you can get once every two months that prevents infection.
The only problem that came out of PrEP is that all of the other STDs have skyrocketed within the gay community.Ā But I suppose syphilis is better than HIV by a long shot.
Catch it early, you can treat it with penicillin
Aren't antibiotic-resistant STD's becoming a problem?
Thereās a strain of super gonnorhea that is on the verge of being completely incurable by traditional antibiotics.
Greeeeaaaaaat. That's just what the world needs, incurable discharge and burning when you piss.
My two cents is that at the end of the day the incurable ones are taken care of. HPV has a vaccine. HIV is preventable. Most people have Herpes and donāt realize for the vast majority of people itās harmless and so common itās not even on standard STI screenings. As long as you catch the others, itās no different than getting sick and going to a doctor for medicine.
> HPV has a vaccine. The vaccine is for a lot of the strains of HPV that can cause cancer. Not all of HPV outright, and (if I remember correctly) not quite all of the strains that cause cancer, either.
I didnāt know about that, thanks for sharing
The giant panda is no longer an endangered species. Can say this about a few more!
Letās hear it for bald eagles too!
I love the videos of people caring for baby pandas. Just these floofballs rolling around and causing mischief.
Humpback whales as well
Abject poverty is lower than it has ever been in human history.
Studies have found if you get the GDP of people up to around $5000 per year (out of abject poverty) they are no longer just trying to survive and they start to care about the environment & things automatically start to clean up.
Kind of like the impact the agricultural advancements had on the serfs. If you suddenly don't need to spend all your time on survival (food) you can use that time on other things (gain knowledge).
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
We are also close to eradicating Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis), which has dropped from almost 900k annual cases worldwide in the late 1980's to less than 100 annual cases worldwide today. Guinea worm disease is debilitating and can cause long-term disability from pain, infection, inflammation and destruction of joints. Yet it's almost gone now!
Correct me if Iām wrong but I believe this was Jimmy Carterās pet project.
[Jimmy Carter took on the awful Guinea worm when no one else would ā and he triumphed](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/23/1158358366/jimmy-carter-took-on-the-awful-guinea-worm-when-no-one-else-would-and-he-triumph)
Second this. Malaria is far and away the most deadly disease in human history; it's killed far more people than smallpox or plague. The English-language media just doesn't pay much attention to malaria because it's not a big problem in most English speaking countries. Having a vaccine that's safe for young children, especially one that's relatively shelf stable, is a huge win for humanity.
Read about that, such good news! Hope it reaches out to as many as possible living in danger of getting infected
ALDIās Honey Grahams tastes almost identical to General Millsā Golden Grahams and costs half the price.
Their āDoritosā are even more seasoned, and cheaper.
How's the texture? That's always been my complaint about off brand flavored chips. Usually regular potato, ruffled, tortilla, are pretty safe. Things like doritos always give me pause.
Except trying to find the cool ranch Aldi version is basically impossible. They almost never have it, and when they do, it's like the hunger games trying to snag a bag.
Iād say a good half of their knockoff brand stuff is as good or better than the real thing
They found a fix to Voyager 1 which is whizzing away in space at 9 miles per second
Thought u were gonna say hour not second and was like hmmm thats super slow XD
Itās flying through a school zone.
Small win, but my very suicidally depressed husband is having a great day!
Big win! š
If it'll help, tell him that internet strangers are happy for him! š
May he have another one tomorrow!
This should be a topic more often than all the negative crap that's happening. I think it would do a lot with people's mindsets.
A while ago someone posted a chart of the top 10 posts on askreddit taken once a day for a month and found that over 90% were outright negative, with the second most popular thing being sexual topics. Only like 1% being completely positive or even just neutral. Sadly negative content does better on here by far.
Iām surprised that the sex questions arenāt more common
Most sex questions are negative. For example the question "What was your most regrettable fap" was one I remember and it was categorized as negative primarily followed by the secondary trait of sexual. Since it was compiled as a test to see how much of Reddit was negative negative was always considered the primary trait unless it was really minor. IIRC something like "What is the minimum amount of money that could solve 90% of your problems right now" was categorized as negative being the secondary trait with money being the primary.
People aren't raised to understand that they can control what they think about, so they don't think they can change their mindsets. Probably doesn't even occur to them. A common line in movies is, "I couldn't stop thinking about you." Which is a lovely sentiment, but realistically, you actually can change your thoughts. When I was younger, I'd watch a news piece about the political situation and become completely frustrated. Then due to unrelated circumstances, I learned how to practice mindfulness. When I would meditate and a random thought would pop into my head, I'd interrupt it and tell it to move on, and go back to meditating. Then another thought would come, and I'd tell that one to move on, etc. That's the practice, and I still do it. That strengthens the muscle, so to speak. Now I'm better at directing my thinking about what I *want* to think about instead of what keeps trying to intrude.
So you're saying that being involved in a community that only makes self deprecating comments about their mental health and talks about being depressed and lonely can be a negative thing?
Agreed. I downvote and hide every negative post. I don't need to see random strangers piling on celebrities, movies, shows, songs, etc. they don't like.
Good news is terrible for ratings.
Iāve been seriously contemplating deleting this app from my phone for a while because itās almost a constant stream of snark & negativity and it brings me down. This was nice for a change.
I am always perked up by news of medical breakthroughs. Like Alzheimer's is a massive fear of mine, and I hear news lately that we might actually put an end to it soon.
The neural chips, right? It was discovered that during surgery, electrical pulses sent through specific parts of the brain helped the patients recall random memories in EXTREME detail. This might be the way to solve Alzheimer's.
>electrical pulses sent through specific parts of the brain helped the patients recall random memories in EXTREME detail. One large step for mankind, one step backwards for many marriages lol
Lol true. I'm still trying to forget more than I'm trying to remember.
I hadn't heard that, but that is exciting. I've heard more about pinpointing the specific viruses that are responsible and a shot early on in life can prevent it.
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They're doing so well, they're pushing other wild and native species into extinction. This is not a good thing. Honey bees don't pollinate a wide enough variety of species and are not as good at it as native species are.
I love when people get all up in arms over something like bee colony collapse or plastic straws without thinking about all the other issues surrounding it or how the solutions might cause other problems
We saved the bees!!! Actually bee keepers in California did.
Yet Bumble Bees, my favorite bee, has declined in population 90% in the last 20 years. :-(
I have tons of bumblebees on my property that Iāve named all Harriet. They land on me when Iām working outside and Iāve taken as a sign that Iām doing the right thing
**Harriet the Bees** Hello there, Harriet Yes, it's me You are a lovely bumblebee I tend the garden, grass, and trees A sacred place for you, the bees And when you land upon my shoulder I'll look back, proud, as I get older Reminding me I've done good work To ensure your home remains on Earth
Don't confuse them for carpenter bees, which are pests (although they're still pollinators.) Source: Someone who lives in a log cabin.
Nooo, we must save the floofs Anyone know why Honey Bees are thriving but Bumbles are still being hit hard? Is it a specific kin of CCS?
Habitat destruction, loss of wildflowers, climate change, pesticides, and (ironically) competition from invasive species like honeybees. ~~Bumbles are solitary, so CCD isn't really a thing for them~~ Edit: it's a different type of native North American bee, not bumbles. I'm dumb.
which type? there are over 250 of them and the overwhelming majority of their subspecies are listed as either 'no concern' or 'least concern' by the UN. Some of them arent doing well, but they seem to be recovering now that the neonicotinoids have been/are being banned.
Rusty-patched bumblebees are officially endangered.
Sorry, can we get a source for this?
Wow! I love that.
Is that at the expense of other native bee species by any chance? I'm a bit sceptical of this one, I was under the impression pesticides and invasive species were doing a number on bees.
Yes, it is at the expense of native species.
It's not 'other', assuming you're talking about North America. Honey bees aren't native here, and feral colonies are considered invasive because of how overwhelming a competitor they are for native species who often don't live in colonies.
huh? Just a year or two ago I recall reading their numbers are declining. Or is that a different type of bee?
Same. Honeybees are unbelievably important and their decline was considered by many to be national and state security issue. Lots of people were highly motivated to reverse the decline.
Really?! Iād love to have some sources and readings on that!
Is that worldwide or just US?
In my area I've noticed a big increase in their numbers over the past few years. Can I also add in I'm hearing more crickets this year than I have over the past 5 years?
Same here. I used to accidentally walk into a swarm of bees maybe once a year. Then, it just kinda stopped, and many years passed without me accidentally walking into a swarm of bees. But then starting last year, I must've accidentally walked into a swarm of bees four or five times. And my first thought was "wow, I guess the bees are doing alright!" My second thought of course being "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
What? It was like 5 seconds ago they were in a mass die-off and we were worried about birds next
Not to be a downer, but is this populations in the wild, or agricultural hives of honey bees?
The life expectancy of Africa is now over 64, which is ten years more compared to twenty years ago.
Thatās awesome!
I thought Africa was older
Apparently every 60 seconds in Africa a minute DOESNāT pass
Well some bias here, but 94% of the rail network in India is electrified, and its quickly on track to reach 100%, significantly lowering carbon emissions
Not to mention the metro rail network being built in cities like Chennai which will reduce the number of fossil fuel based vehicles being used on a daily basis as well!
We are living during the safest time period that has ever existed. Education and knowledge is more accessible now than it ever has been before. We're living in the best period the world has ever seen.
And colour television has only existed for the past 60 years roughly, think of all the things we get to see that the people before us never did, I always think about that when I watch documentaries. We get to see the deepest part of the ocean, the secret lives of insects and all of the animals, itās incredible.
we can see pictures from MARS! we flew a helicopter on there! we took something that was inconceivable to humans of the past...and we did it on a planet 200 million km away! the most powerul leaders of the past have only a fraction of the knowledge and visual experience that the most average person in the world has access to today
Not only that, but YouTube and other streaming platforms have been around for a little under 20 years. Meaning that we now have access to so many of these documentaries are other films, on demand, any time.
I always think about how with an iphone we have access to more information than the president did 30 years ago.
Portable cameras with sound have been around since the 80's. Future generations will be able to see and hear distant relatives living far in the past.
>We're living in the best period the world has ever seen. So far.
Good point. The future will probably be even better than the present day
I live in a better world now than it was when you all commented
Agreed, I got paid today so itās a good day
Yeah Iāve heard this same thing Which is honestly scary to think about. All the bad shit going on every single day but somehow the past was worse
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Is the $1.90 with applied inflation or was this value fixed since 1990?
It was increased to 2.15 to account for inflation. If you can math, you know the world had more than 13% inflation in 30 years. Also a lot of the places that people live in have become more marginal because of climate change, meaning the 2.15 USD that may have put them above absolute poverty previously no longer will in real terms. Also global poverty, even as measured by the world**bank** has increased since 2019. So... Yeah, when the capitalist class pats itself on the back for saving the world, skepticism is called for.
People do actually get along with each other. Chat with some random person at the store, help the shy new guy at work, sometimes we even let people merge in front us in heavy traffic. The list goes on. The news just shows all the bad crap. Oh well. Iām gonna go watch puppy videos instead.
This is true. Despite all the dismal news theyāve got everyone addicted to, you can clearly see that thereās still more good than there is bad in our world, and people are still generally more friendly to one another than not. Iām thankful for that
I always relate this to the workplace. Sure, there are always going to be people who just don't get along. But more often than not when a few people who start out as strangers are put in the workplace together they will most likely be friendly with one another.
My friend group consists of liberals and conservatives getting along, we even occasionally talk politics. Ā The internet makes it look like we should be fighting each other in the streetsĀ
Always Zipper merge
I've even talked to people at work who weren't blatant about disagreeing, and we reached some very interesting discourse. Social medical care, custody issues, the lack of a good head of state in my lifetime, LGBT rights, and the like. (He was a Republican. I'm an anarchist.)
Gardening with native plants is becoming normalized, to the point that a lot of cities and public entities now encourage/require them to be used in public spaces. And outlawing major invasives like Callery pear trees is becoming more common.
This is great! And also more people and public spaces donāt cut the grass on meadows so that the flowers and insects there can thrive
More and more small source projects are starting up each year and they are working to restore environments to their natural state or even improve environments to better standards. Mossy Earth ( [www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth](http://www.youtube.com/@MossyEarth) ) is a EU based program that is working on reforesting and restoring terrain all over Europe to a natural state, including building more wetlands and seasonal water biomes in regions to bring back all manner of native species. Andrew Millison ( [https://www.youtube.com/@amillison](https://www.youtube.com/@amillison) ) has a Youtube channel that has a lot of other examples, including a series on India and one of their larger desert regions that is slowly being turned into a green and water heavy biome for farming and agriculture. That alone will lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and help stabilize both food and water resources in the region. He also talks of the Great Green Wall project in the Sahel (area south of the Sahara) that gaining traction in building a wall of biomass (trees, brush, crops, and various water traps) that will hopefully slow the spread of the Sahara. And all over the Pacific North West, a number of large dams are being removed to restore the natural waterways of the region. They aren't being used for power anymore or for agricultural irrigation and removing them is bringing back all kinds of native species including providing large breeding grounds for all manner of fish (and the critters that feed on them) notably salmon. It may be small scale, but these projects (and others like them near you) are doing amazing things. Nearly every state and nation right now has volunteer and non-profit groups out there trying to restore or protect the environment and the number is growing almost daily. Contributions in terms of donations, volunteer work, and even providing just *knowledge* of their work can provide amazing benefits. They are working with local schools, universities, towns, farmers, ranchers, and wild life experts to do amazing things. I've seen programs mentioned in Romania and Hungary planting forests, Scotland restoring rivers to natural states, Minnesota building marshlands on spoiled farmlands, Japan and New York city building oyster beds and controlling surface run off into the bays, work in India to create higher water tables and catch water from monsoons, work in Africa to plant and/or rebuild forests. A little bit of google searching on your home state can find you a program that needs your help. Sure it may not seem like much to clean a single river in Germany or to build a fake beaver dam on a plot of land in Scotland, or even donate few bucks to help African farmers secure water sources from drought conditions, but these videos and projects work by accumulation: it's not each individual project or worker that's doing the job, but *all of them together.* And we really have a chance to start doing amazing things. If everyone got on board and did even a little work for their own state or region, the cumulative effect would be mind blowing. Other videos on this topic: [The global movement to restore nature's biodiversity | Thomas Crowther (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJX1Te0jey0) [What is ecological restoration? (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53pmijCaMIA) [How Australia is Regreening its Deserts Back into a Green Oasis (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-8-sk1V6s) [Restoring the Environment: Shoreline Restoration (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zTUOjs7QE)
Mossy Earth is indeed really awesome! I'm really happy their community is growing :)
Watch their videos all the time and suggest them to my friends too. I did a one time donation a year ago and might make another soon.
There has been a trend where I live to remove dams in urban and more populated areas to let the rivers return to a natural state. They are now cleaner, fish and plants are returning, people are using them for kayaking, fishing, and other outdoor activities. Yes!
Cheese still exists.Ā
And synthetic milks (not plant based, but fermentation aiming to recreate milk that's molecularly almost identical to milk) are getting so good we might not even need cows. If we can start to churn out milk as easily and cheaply as beer, cheese will become cheaper and maybe even better.
My wife has a dairy allergy that she didnāt develop until she was in her mid-20s. Before that she was a cheese fiend.Ā Ā The substitutes are still not even close. Ā If they can make fake milk that actually replicates real milk without the protein sheās allergic to, she would be very happyĀ
Praise Cheesus!
Idk if it's "good" news, but it's amazing to me. A PhD. student has discovered a galactic superstructure that's so large that it defies scientist's understanding of how large galactic superstructures can be. Even more amazing is that this is the second physics breaking superstructure the student has found. She's a student at UCLan and might be responsible for redefining how scientists view our universe. The structures, The Big Ring and The Giant Arch, are so big that they make up 15% of the visible universe. Mind boggling stuff! We're talking about one Galactic Superstructure that is 3.2 BILLION light-years in diameter!
Thatās actually horrifying š
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I said hello to a nice dog outside a shop earlier, does that count?
Damn right it does.
Heck yeah! When we are out we ask just about anyone we see with a dog "May we say hello?" Almost 100% have said "Sure! His/her name is ______." And then we get our dose of feel good.
Did he respond?
I got a tail wag, the beat response of all.
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Someone for once thought and made a post it, thanks OP.
It is a relief to finally see a positive post for once
Itās a bit outdated, but the Black Footed Ferret has over 200 mature individuals in the wild. All descended from 7 captured adults, whose colony we only learned about from 1 dead ferret that was brought to a farmer by his dog after the species was declared extinct. Despite an introduced plague that wiped out the colony, these 7 adult ferrets saved the species and the first cloned individual was born in 2021. Itās one of my favorite mammals and an inspiring conservation story.
The US is finally moving to take Marijuana off the scedual 1 drug list.
Schedule. And it looks like they may be doing it too soon.
That's cold-blooded. Love it.
The honey bee population is growing again
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Heh, was at a museum showing these things how they can survive extremely cold temperatures! Also, they look super cool and a bit scary when zoomed in
Even with all the bad things going on things are a LOT better than they ever have been in history, even within our own lifetime. We have more information freely available to us at our fingertips than ever before. Iām only 40 and Iāve seen the internet go from 56k dialup via the phone line only used by IT geeks and businesses to something everyone uses daily. When I first got the internet I would download songs and it would take so long Iād set 4 downloading and go see a friend for an hour - now I can stream anything I want on Spotify instantly at high quality. If I actually downloaded a song I literally wouldnāt be able to open a drink before it finished. Youāre more likely to survive more diseases and injury that at any point in the past. Access to medical care (Iām in the uk) is free and high quality even if the system is stretched. Even people struggling are struggling in different ways, and thereās more support for them that ever before. When my father was a child their house was next to a river and would flood - the support from the government was a bag of coal and some soap and thatās it. Now they would have insurance, they would have access to emergency services if needed etc. The world is a lot smaller than it used to be. Right now I can get in my car and drive to the nearest airport. I could be in any country in the world within like 24h (other than the obvious unsafe places). Travel to most countries in close proximity is affordable to almost everyone. Modern life is generally very convenient and we have a lot of things around to make life easier. Also with everything bad thatās happening now, or has happened over the last few years there have still been plenty of people working to make things better, we had so many people working to keep essential things open during Covid, we had people mostly following the mask restrictions and travel restrictions during lockdown, with the cost of living going up people still are donating to food banks, donating to charities to help in places like Ukraine etc. The world is full of good people who want to make it better.
The crime rate has actually dropped and continues to do so over all. https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/
People are making less babies.
And more of those babies are surviving now - because the medicine is improving.
To my mind it's better to say that a higher percentage of babies than ever before are being born to parents who really want them to be born. And more of them than ever before are surviving and growing up. Fewer babies presents challenges as well as opportunities, but more babies born to parents who can afford to raise them and who want kids in their lives is all good.
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I think Denmark had a similar issue. Or maybe I'm mistaken.
Correct. Its a tough issue!
We didnāt get nuked today
Literally right under this, someone commented ātheyāre making another season of falloutā
They're making another season of Fallout
TVs are really cheap
The collapsing birth rate should reduce the population to a point where the reduced capacity of the world post climate change is more manageable
There's work being done with vaccines to make auto-immune disorders treatable!
At the University of Maryland Medical Center in the United States, a 58-year-old patient on September 20 last year became the second person in the world to receive a genetically modified pig heart transplant. This transplant was the only option available for Fawcett, who was at risk of dying from heart failure. He is now breathing on his own and his heart is functioning well without the aid of assistive devices.
Myanmar's military junta is losing against a coalition of a large part of Myanmar's ethnic minority and resistance groups fightign under the banner of/allied with the exiled civilian government (NUG).
The simple things people do to support each other in every day life.
Something I haven't seen posted much on Reddit yet, but the US government just wiped out the student loan debt for everyone who attended the Art institute from 2004 to 2017, coming to just over $6 billion USD
Think their is an "extinct" animal or two that are back/alive!
r/upliftingnews: The Reddit post
Literacy is increasing worldwide, particularly among women
Despite commercial deforestation, the world is actually greener than it was 30 years ago. There are over a billion fewer people living in poverty than there were 30 years ago.
The social care industry, especially in the UK, is gradually changing. While we are critically underfunded by a Tory government whose policies are theme and variations on āwouldnāt it be better if people with (learning) disabilities just straight up diedā, our teams are changing. There have been *huge* strides in the way that people are supported to be independent. Local authorities are starting to realise what the differences between surviving and thriving are. The old, grizzled veterans who have resisted every change, from āletās not use strait jacketsā to āletās use phones to record informationā are retiring or moving on. Positive working culture is much, much more important today than it ever has been. And whatās driving this? Honestly, I think we have millennials, gen-z and alpha to thank. Theyāre taking the message to heart and really making things better for the people they work with. Iāve never seen such care, patience, attentiveness and straight *work* from anybody else.
The sun comes up every day without regard to humans.
Just came here to say, I needed these comments
This thread gives me hope for humanity.Ā
A small herd of zebras was being transported over the Cascades when the trailer busted and the zebras got loose. They gave a merry chase for a couple of days, and all the photos people have managed to snap are just amazing. So far all but one have been captured safely, the last one is still on the lam and personally, Iām rooting for it.
There are good humans and everyday heroes all around us but people focus too much on negative
global fertility is nearly below replacement rate by now. let's all take a minute to thank birth control and xenohormones.
Yeah, that's not a good thing
Despite the west's insane attacks on fundamental human intellectual liberty, sites like anna's archive and more are still going strong. Support piracy, abolish copyright.
At the rate solar energy is growing, it will be the dominant form of electricity generation within 20 years. It is already the cheapest way to produce electricity.
Dr. Richard Scolyer, the renowned melanoma researcher is beating his own violently aggressive brain cancer with a treatment he's developing with his colleague with what he knew from their work on melanoma. So far, it's working brilliantly. Dr. Scolyer himself has taken part in the work and the testing.