If you look for it, you'll find it. Depends on what you're looking for. It's so easy to get lost in the negative things, especially when they are important and affecting our lives right at this moment. But it's also important to remember that positive things are also happening at the same time.
One Reddit user wanted to learn what are some good things happening right now that many people aren't aware of. And readers were eager to share their good news; from personal achievements to global wins for us all, people shared things that made them feel better about our world.
Bored Panda collected the best answers in this thread that reminded us there's so much good out there. Scroll down and upvote your favorites. And if there's anything positive that you'd like to share, don't be shy and tell us in the comments below!
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Pandas are no longer an endangered species!
Isn't that the point of pandas though? If there was ever a species that was built to just eat, hang out, and not do much else, it's the Panda. Even sloths have more motivation.
Load More Replies...OH MY GOSH. Finally. They’ve been endangered for longer than I’ve been alive. This is incredible
I am delighted. But although deforestation will undoubtably have had an impact, aren't they just notoriously poor at breeding?
Total population still under 2000, according to various sources. China just 'declaring' them no longer endangered doesn't make it so.
it's not china that declares it though there are organizations that keep track of the total numbers. there are under 2000 wild pandas but over another 600 in captivity.
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My foster daughter told me she loved me.
That’s so sweet I don’t have words for it. My best friend is adopted and the trauma that she and her siblings went through all before the age of five is unreal. Keep giving this girl all the love you can give. She will be so thankful for it later.
This one stopped me in my tracks. As a former foster /adopted child it hit hard.
As somebody who grew up with foster siblings, this is my favorite thing I have seen in a while.
This is heartwarming but sad at the same time. Does foster daughter just mean she's with the family temporarily? Or will this family actually adopt her. So many foster kids are just moved around, and some are ripped from the one good family they've ever been with.
for the first time in decades there have been Iberian Lynx sightings in the region of Madrid. Two sightings in the last week, huge news as this species is amongg the most endangered animals in the world.
OMG!!! I’ve been praying for this for two decades! Come on, Spain, keep the streak going! 😻
anyone hear about the quoll in australia? first time seen in 130 years, they thought it was extinct
Wait?!?! The wildlife that the righteous people of Europe have murdered into near non-existence is returning?! YES!!!
A groundbreaking new Alzheimer’s drug was just approved that significantly slows the disease’s progression.
I live in England and my dad has diagnosed 2 months ago. Afew weeks ago he started the medication that will hopefully slow it down. A cruel disease
I wish him luck. Super happy you live in a country where you won't have to go into massive debt to pay for the medication. I live in the U.S. and work in a pharmacy...processed a drug the other day that came to more than $103,000. Obviously, the patient couldn't afford it.
Load More Replies...My Dad died of Alzheimers in 2007. He was a concert violinist, played with the Boston Pops under Henry Mancini, was Concertmaster in the Chicago Symphony. Watching him deteriorate was horrible. It is wonderful to learn that there are new treatments out there now!
Sorry to hear. Boston area as well. My mother has Alzheimer's and it is indeed the "Long Goodbye"...
Load More Replies...Leqembi. Per patient, a prescription may cost $19,500 per year including $11,000 in of out-of-pocket expenses (Pricing assumptions are based on modeling and could be mitigated by tactics such as price negotiations and targeted prescribing) Medicare Part B now covers the pricey drug. However, Part B beneficiaries will still be responsible for 20% of Leqembi's cost, currently listed by its manufacturer at $26,500 annually.
To be fair though, that's generally the case with new/experimental drugs. I really hope it becomes common and falls under insurance.
Load More Replies...My dad just passed 2 months ago from this. I have a hard believing this. It'll depend on when they were diagnosed, if they have other contraindications, if the side effects outweigh the benefits, the cost of it. So many factors. I really hope this does work, but it's hard to keep my hopes up.
What about the recent discovery that a specific bacteria that is produced in our guts is a major cause of the brain damage? Supposedly just eating a high fiber diet reduces the amount of that bacteria. If true, then our high sugar, high carb, low fiber American diet is the cause of our brain deterioration.
Someone please correct me but wouldn't slowing down the disease also just prolong the suffering...?
Not really, it should mean more years before the disease really shows itself.
Load More Replies...Currently watching a drama with a character who has Alzheimer's, thinking about my dad who is being tested for it, knowing how hard it was when his father had it...tearing up quite a bit if I'm honest...
I don't have the genetic cancer gene that killed half my family, including my dad. It's life changing for me:)
That’s incredible OP! I’m so sorry for your loss, but I hope you continue to live and thrive. You deserve it
Did they read my family's med history? I wish and hope the same for me and my siblings, along with nephews and neices. I'm so happy for OP; and, at the same time, I wish that the cancer gene does not appear anymore on any of the generations to come for them.
i’ve escaped generational poverty :)
Me too! And I left behind all the most toxic people in my life. Mental health vastly improved
Getting out of generational poverty is hard, but ik the hardwork is def worth it- you should be proud!
CONGRATULATIONS!!! This is huge. It's more than just finding a good job or making more of yourself, there are /so/ many mental barriers that come from generational poverty that are hard to overcome. Great job!!
Me too, if only my kids can escape. I hope the best for you and your son.
Load More Replies...Canada just passed a bill guaranteeing a Universal Basic Income for those with Disabilities which is going to pull so many people out of poverty. The bill just needs royal ascent(which is just a formality) for it to be come law. And then in 12 months it will be enacted
This makes my heart smile super big❣💖🍁 as a proud Canadian!
I am so happy for you guys! The US needs lessons.
Load More Replies...As a Canadian experiencing some pretty extreme hardship right now, I gotta ask... can we just do this tomorrow please?
In the USA, you must not have any assets to collect. If you have a 401k ( retirement) account, they give you less money. I get the " why should we help if you are rich?" but why do i have to be destitute to get $24,000 a year ( best case scenario).
Load More Replies...They also just passed dental care for children and the current government alliance has said they're going to provide universal dental and pharmacare, as well as automating the annual tax rebate system. The CRA has all our tax forms on file, so you'll just need to send in specific deductions, the rest will be taken care of. But we might lose all that in the next election
I know the Workers Income Tax Benefit has been automatically been moved to installments instead of a lump sum with your income tax return. This may suck because I already received mine for last years return, and now I'm getting it for this year with my GST, so now I don't know what my return is going to look like come spring, like if it's going to be an over payment or if I'll be okay. Sometimes, things should just be left alone. C'est la vie. I'm going to save that amount, then.
Load More Replies...This can only be done in a country if it does not need a bloated military budget to rule the world.
Royal assent? The King has to approve it? Seriously? Does that happen in Oz, NZ, etc too?
It's not done by the king, it's done by the Governor General.
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More people than ever before have access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation which is saving thousands of lives
Woo hoo! Now if we can get pads and tampons to people who can’t get them and also maybe idk, stop charging and taxing so much for a necessary product?
Contraception should also be available to everyone. So many children increases their poverty level. Unfortunately religion, old wives tales and being unable to say no to their husbands still happens in too many places.
British Columbia, Canada recently (April I think) introduced free prescription contraception :) “It was costing the government more to pay for the management of unintended pregnancies than it would cost to be able to provide free contraception for everybody in the province. Free contraception had the potential to save the health system approximately $27 million per year.” I’m getting my IUD swapped next week for a new one and it will cost me a grand total of $0! 🇨🇦
Load More Replies...So very happy to hear this. Having clean drinking water and basic sanitation shouldn't really be an issue... but, alas!
I sincerely hope this is true. At the age of 42, having only ever heard of how desperately Africa (in particular) needs money to access clean, safe drinking water, one would hope it's in a better position now. Otherwise it makes you damn cynical about giving to charity.
…since the mass immigration of the west by people from third world countries this is logical that more people have access to clean water. Text may also be: “More people than ever before have access to concrete houses instead of mudholes which is saving thousands of lives.”
Grey whale population has grown 20% in California in the last year.
My brain wants to take that to literally and now I'm picturing whales happily swimming through the Californian soil
What if there were only five and now there are six? That's both 20% growth yet extremely depressing.
If only we had resources like Wikipedia at hand who can lead us to these numbers with almost-zero effort. The answer is: No, they're a surprisingly big success, back to about a third of their pre-whaling levels --- and that's the "Californian" population at its own; the Atlantic one was totally exterminated and the two asian ones are wobbling around extinction.
Load More Replies...being devils advocate or has tech developed enough to detect these whales better than before?
Probably not. With a lot of these very small, very endangered populations of whales, pretty much every single individual has a number, and frequently a nickname. Scientists collect data from their own research and from whale-watching photos sent in by the public; they know which whales were seen with calves, which calves survived, which adults have been found dead or been stranded, hit by boats or entangled in fishing gear. They can closely monitor population trends from year to year; if they recorded a 20% population increase, that's probably a pretty accurate number.
Load More Replies...I hate to say this but the total population of Gray whales has declined since 2016 and even the last year. On the upside they seem healthier https://phys.org/news/2023-07-declining-population-gray-whales-west.amp https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/new-gray-whale-count-shows-further-decline-hints-turnaround#:~:text=NOAA%20Fisheries%20declared%20an%20Unusual,to%20approximately%2014%2C500%20in%202023.
The humpback whale has made an almost complete recovery in population since the end of whaling. And blue whale numbers are finally starting to increase. In addition, increased atmospheric CO2 has led to more oceanic phytoplankton which in turn has led to more zooplankton and richer whale feeding grounds.
A malaria vaccine has been developed and is currently undergoing human trials. This could save hundreds of thousands of lives a year, many of them children.
This is outdated. There is already a malaria vaccine approved and being deployed. 18 million doses will be distributed between 2023 and 2025 in African countries. It is not available for tourists as they are not the priority public.
Three countries have been receiving the vaccine since 2019. 1,7 million doses already. No antivax there.
Load More Replies...The malaria vaccine is already out, human trials are well past done. I would know cuz I was vaccinated for it last year before going to Panama.
This is important, as global warming lets disease-carrying mosquitoes move further north.
I'm either behind the times or ahead of the times because I thought we've had a vaccine for decades.
Treatment has been around for a while, but not so much a vaccine. Although obviously there is one now.
Load More Replies...I'm NOT an expert- would appreciate an expert's weigh in- I thought we already had treatments and preventative medecine for malaria? I had to take it before doing missions. I was under the impression the issue isn't existence, but access....but what I took was in pill form, not a vaccine.
A vaccine is hugely more effective than trying to keep millions or billions of people on a preventative dosing regimen. There are treatments, but many people live in areas that are nowhere near treatment and treatment must begin quickly, as the disease can quickly worsen, with children being especially vulnerable. A vaccine would go a long way toward eliminating most of the 600,000 or so deaths per year, the majority being children.
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More young women and girls in less developed countries are in primary and secondary education than ever before
More people worldwide are vaccinated than ever before, and a number of malaria vaccines are currently showing pretty positive results
Since 1990, the number of people living in extreme poverty has more than halved - from 2 billion to around 700 million.
The rate of infant mortality is consistently declining year on year
Lots still wrong with the world, lots of things that have gotten worse. But these are significant improvements that shouldn’t be understated. Constant and unrelenting negativity breeds passiveness, knowing what we’ve done well helps us to understand what we’re capable of - and allows us to tackle the problems in a more pragmatic and effective manner.
I agree with the message about unrelenting negativity. At some point, if it's all you hear, your spirit really does just give up. But when I hear about small victories (like those about poverty, education, pandas, Iberian lynxes, grey whales, etc.) I think that "hey! Maybe the little that I can do really does make a difference!" And then I have the motivation to soldier on.
This not a small victory at all, it is enormously positive.
Load More Replies...This sort of improvement is the best kind. When women are more educated, they have more self-determination and have fewer children they would otherwise have been forced to have; their quality of life gets better and, in turn, creates better quality of life for their communities.
I have heard, that we already are breeding less, and that the population explosion is easing off.
Load More Replies...But let's take a moment to remember the girls and women of Afghanistan, who have been thrust back into the Dark Ages.
This gives me so much hope in humanity, as long as we're all working together to reach the same positive goal.
I would rather hear some significat positive message like: people are not overruling the world, everyone is educated enough to know they should have only an acceptable number of offsprings, so the planet will not be overcrowded and ruined and will survive US.
California's Lake Oroville is now back at being 100% full after being dangerously low from years of drought.
I am from Oroville. They had a great snow pack this year so it did fill and looks great but a few years ago it was in danger of overflowing due to too much rain for a prolonged time which would have sent 300,000 cubic feet a minute spilling over the mile long dam. I doubt they will risk keeping it full for long. (It is a dammed lake with a mile long earth-filled dam, which was a record holder for many years)
I love that Lake Oroville is on this list. It doesn’t get the attention it deserves. We’ve been going there since I was a kid and when I visit of late, we try to do a camping or day trip. Now if they could rebuild the covered bridge in Chico, life may feel a little more whole again.
Load More Replies...Shasta was super full too. It was nice to see it this year. Yes we will always be in a drought cycle, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a good year. Those of us practicing water saving habits have not changed them just because there is more this year. If anything, we've been excitedly filling our rain barrels.
With an El Niño year predicted it just might help get out of the long term drought. Drought is not a thing that can be ended after one good year, especially one that has gone on for quite a while. But any little bit helps.
Kamala Harris toured the dam during the flood risk, escorted by the National Guard.
Unfortunately, this is only temporary. It will likely overflow from El Niño rains and snow this year then we’ll be back in a La Niña cycle which will draw it down again. If that cycle lasts three years like it did this last cycle, it will probably be close to dry again in four years.
People are becoming more trauma informed, facing their wounds, and making sure the next generation’s burden will be at least a little lighter.
as long as we stop getting called “snowflakes” for it, i think we’re doing the most amount of trauma healing out of all!!
The people who are so quick to call others snowflakes are usually the biggest snowflakes themselves! Extremely thin-skinned.
Load More Replies...Good! Everybody’s got trauma. It shouldn’t be normal but it should be normal to recognize it and be able to get help healing, whether from loved ones, animals, or a therapist.
Yes, I noticed that many people of this new generation has resorted to therapy way more than the previous (like my parents yk) I'm so happy and I really hope this helps us become even better individuals.
The problem is that while business says they are doing more to help, in reality most are just all talk. My company increased work loads while making everything harder to do. When staff started getting more stressed and complaining about the expectation to take work home was affecting their personal time their solution was to organize yoga classes....after work! They wanted us to give up more of our personal time so we could work better for them.
Appendectomies.
In 1931, my great grandfather died a horrible death due to septic shock from a ruptured appendix, leaving a widow and four kids under the age of 11.
I’m a nurse. Last week we did a laparoscopic appendectomy on a teenager that took all of 90 minutes. He will have a tiny scar and it will be a blip in his medical history.
Honestly medical advancements are some of the most mind-blowing on this list. There are plenty of surgeries and procedures and whatnot that are still dangerous, but there is sooooo much that is like 99% safer now than it was 100 years ago.
I was born with serious neuro issues at the beginning of '72. My parents were told I might never walk, talk, or go to school, and I probably wouldn't live past my teens. I graduated college in '95, and this January I'll be 52 yo.
Load More Replies...In 2017 I nearly died because of a ruptured appendix because the doctors said that it must be probably only some minor pelvic inflammation. When my condition worsened they said, yeah, maybe we should take a look at it what it is. They waited a whole day with the op and cut me from side to side just to see that my insides were swimming already in goo. I had to stay in there nearly for a month afterwards because not even water were I able to get into me. I'm over 175 cm and I weighed 45 kg afterwards... I looked anorexic... I developed rosacea because of it, I have even now aches because of the badly healed op scar and I have horrible cramps every time when I have to go to the loo. So yeah. Not even now "a blip"...
I feel your pain, I had a very similar experience.
Load More Replies...Now if we could just stop the US government from overcharging it's civilans so much for medical care that it sends us into debt for the rest of our life to get any treatment.
Other surgeries, too. Heart bypass surgery and hip surgeries are both very much better than they were even 30 years ago. Keyhole and robotic surgery have been a godsend.
I had sepsis after an appendix rupture in 1990. The main problem being that my mum didn’t believe me when I said I was in pain (for a year)… :( I nearly didn’t make it. I’m happy for other people when they say they had their appendix out and it was no big deal!
This is a big thing because people use to die of this a whole lot.
I had an emergency appendectomy half a decade ago, and was on the verge of going septic. I have an 8 inch scar, and with the use of a wound vac and some powerful antibiotics, I recovered. Everyone who took care of me was AMAZING, but especially my anesthesiologist. I am VERY grateful for advances in modern medicine.
Same with gallbladder. I have 3 super tiny scars and my belly button still looks the same. It was so fast and very minimal recovery time. Incredible.
Crocodiles like pink flowers and I think we should talk abt that more
what????? i’m now obsessed with this fact, trying to find articles
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2949087/The-Fun-Lovin-CROCODILES-Deadly-reptiles-play-piggy-backs-surf-prefer-pink-flowers.htm
Load More Replies...They "like" them by sniffing their perfume daintily or just biting their heads off?
Cats like purple ones. Kittens like long ones (more fun to pounce).
I knew a cat who used to sniff roses, his eyes closed and purring
Load More Replies...https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/150219-crocodiles-playing-animals-science-behavior-fun
They're also scared of otters. Otters will bully them when they come in land to bask if they're in the otters territory. They all hang up on them by biting & picking on the croc until he finds a new basking area. I think that's hilarious.
To smell them. . .? Or to eat them. . .? Who got close enough to find this out. . .?
Mental Health is actually being addressed and very much more openly talked about
They didn’t think it was a thing unless it was a major issue like schizophrenia. Seriously. Any time anyone presented with an addiction or depression, the assumption was that they were moral failures or bad people getting what they deserved or just being dramatic. Some people still believe that and call those with mental health issues “soft” or “snowflake.” We’re getting better but we’re a long way from widespread acceptance of mental health being a thing.
Load More Replies...I am teaching my older generation parents about how important mental health is. It is disgusting how people think it is not important. And it took a suicide attempt from their grand child to make them realize how important it is. Always take care of yourself and your mental health.
Depends... still not easy to obtain or pay for. Health insurance (USA) still pitiful for therapy and an undue burden for those that need it most!
We talk more about it, but sadly that historical stigma and the nature of the problem means many men will not admit it, or even realise they are suffering. And some are so good at masking it that we never know until it's too late. Robin Williams was a classic example. It took a friend hearing one little thing I said one day and telling me I needed help before I admitted to myself I had a problem and was spiraling downwards. The other sad fact is that often those best are spotting it are those that have been in the darkness.
Most of the world STILL doesn't talk about it ... I teach immigrants to speak English and they are VERY surprised that we share our "weaknesses" this way ... :P
Honey bees are at a all time high, and are now considered overpopulated! The whole “save the bees” was never made for honey bees, but instead other species such as the mining bees !
And yet the varroa mite is now poised to wipe out Australia's honeybees. This will largely kill off the amateur honey industry, dramatically increase the cost of bee-keeping and reduce the availability of bees for commercial users such as farmers. Food production will diminish and increase the cost of food.
Why is it so difficult for commenters in BP to allow the rest of us to hear some good news and enjoy it for awhile? Why does someone immediately have to jump in with their brand of gloom and doom? Can we just have happy for a day or so, then you can hop in with your negativity?
Load More Replies...This is at least partially BS. Honeybees may not be in danger of extinction but there were DEFINITELY some major problems going on. MANY years ago I kept bees as a hobby. Just a couple of hives. 10 years or so ago I was considering doing so again since I now have property with room to do that. I was talking to the beekeepers booth at our local fair. At the time they suggested it was a difficult time to get back into it because many of the local professional beekeepers were losing hives - some more than half of their hives. They were trying to figure out the various causes. Mites, some pesticides etc. Point being is at that time they said were having a LOT more trouble with bees dying off than they used to. If that is better now - that's great. But it was definitely a "thing" - at least in certain areas.
Honey bees was never endangered, they are actually supressing the ones that are,... hurray...
Bees are cute. And fuzzy. And adorable. We love bees. Wasps... not so much.
For the first time ever the Ambulance Company I work for has a good amount of employees so everyone isn't severely overworked.
Ambulance company? The term itself just doesn't make sense to me as a Canadian. I imagine Europeans and people from lots of other places around the world probably feel the same. Where I live, there are paramedics. They work for the Paramedic Service, which is run by the municipal government, same as police and the fire department. There is no private ambulance service. You just call for an ambulance, and the city sends them like they would any other emergency service. There is still a nominal fee. The last time I needed an ambulance I was charged $40.
You don't have to be Canadian for this not to make sense. In the US the heathcare system is all about making dollars, not sense.
Load More Replies...Great. Paramedics are some of the most overworked and stressed people.
Don't think this posted the first time so forgive me if its a double, but ive worked in Healthcare for about 15 months and its the first time in about 8 months that my line is actually fully staffed. I can actually focus on improving quality of life beyond just doing basic care for 17 people because im not working alone constantly. And I even have some leftover energy for my personal life. Its an incredible feeling.
This is amazing, also shows how many people have resorted into the EMT/paramedic field!
This is definitely overworked profession. And it is one of the hardest jobs.
My brother was an EMT for awhile. He is a ridiculously tough guy but he couldn't handle the calls for kids. I don't blame him. I wouldn't be able to either. I'm just awe struck by the people who do those jobs day after day, jobs that would destroy the rest of us.
I wish that could happen for our federal prison system!!!!!
there is a company that has redesigned the prosses of nuclear fission to make a more stable, clean renewable energy source whos biproduct produces helium and no radioactive isotopes. basically made a nuclear reactor thatdoesnt produce radioactive waste and simultaneously has the ability to replenish the global helium supply that was otherwise impossible
SOURCE ??? Fission reactors produce radioactive isotopes. Fusion reactors do produce helium. They also produce tritium which is a radioactive isotope but has a much shorter half life. Except no one has made a commercial viable fusion reactor yet. Possibly you are talking about one of the newer thorium reactors? which also produce radioactive isotopes but they claim most of the byproduct is isotopes with shorter half lives. -- If there is any truth to the claim above I would appreciate a source link. I worked in pressurized water reactors that used enriched U-235 and am not as familiar with some of the newer designs.
Fission was a typo on the OPs part, it's a development in nuclear fusion. BP cut off the source - a Real Engineering youtube documentary about nuclear fusion development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38
Load More Replies...The only reason older reactors do produce radioactive waste is because the US DOD favored the Uranium Fuel Cycle. A cycle that can be used to produce weapons grade Plutonium. Alternatively, the Thorium fuel cycle produces less waste, uses a more abundant fuel and it CAN NOT be used to make material for weapons. Unfortunately for us, our ancestors wanted nuclear bombs more than nuclear power.
As nuclear power plants, on their own, just don't make sense (to put it short, I'll leave out everything deeper for now), let alone more sense than other power plant types, but nuclear weapons have properties that other weaponry can't compete with, they make - inside of the logic of the cold war, or inside any logic in which there's legitimate reasons to own and eventually operate strategic weapons - a lot more sense, relatively seen, than the power plants were ever meant to. They're meant to compare diggs on a hilarious level, and they're meant to provide fuel for fission explosives.
Load More Replies...They're talking about new attempts to deploy nuclear FUSION reactors, which fuse hydrogen to make helium. But also, people fear fission reactors because of Chernobyl and disinformation and fear mongering perpetuated by oil companies. We have safe places to store nuclear waste from fission reactors, and also ways to use it to make safe new technologies like "forever batteries". There are modern designs like the pebble bed reactor that physically cannot have meltdowns. We could have had clean, green, and fossil fuel free energy grids by the 90s, but people still don't understand and fear them and that fear has been successfully been used to destroy the world so a small number of people could attain unusable amounts of money
And fear mongering among the auper-greens who, although they claim environmental catastrophe is only years away, refuse to acknowledge the safest, readily available power source we have
Load More Replies...This relates to nuclear fusion. Going to be many decades before it could become commercial. At present the researchers can keep a fusion reaction going for only a few secondsat best.
Nope. Radioactive. Radio active. Ra.dee.oh Active. Even the dunces amongst us know that level of radio activity is... not conducive to human life, or most other life for that matter. Can we please move to hydrogen fuel cells? Where the biggest emission concern will be how to keep the exhaust from freezing.
Unfortunately, commercial Nuclear Fusion has always been "20 years off" for the last 50 years.
A few global public health things:
We have made tremendous progress on ending the AIDS epidemic in the last 40 years.
The percentage of adults that smoke cigarettes is lower than it has been historically.
We went from like 800k cases of Guinea worm in the world in the late 80s to 12 in 2022.
A big thanks to Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter for contributions to help with the eradication
Wait. I don’t get it. An American evangelical Christian that isn’t spending all their time obsessing over the sex lives of others or trying to end access to abortion but instead doing what Jesus told them to do by caring for the sick and poor? Just more of the Carter’s dunking on the religious right and exposing them for the nasty, Trump-worshipping apostates they are.
Load More Replies...All good things. I am old enough to remember when if someone was HIV positive it was basically a death sentence. It is still bad of course but as I understand it modern meds have made a huge difference in both life expectancy and quality of life. And also whether the HIV ever becomes full blown aids.
I lived in San Francisco during the 80s. I went to the funerals of friends who died of AIDS practically every weekend. It was a horrible, horrible time.
Load More Replies...I was a teenager at the peak of the AIDS epidemic and it was a scary time to be horney.
the AIDS epidemic should have got more help sooner. 700,000 people died in the US. great that it isn't fatal anymore but people should've cared more even if they thought it only affected gay men.
I love the idea that New Zealand's idea of banning anyone born after 2009 from buying cigarettes is spreading. The idea that one year the world will just have to quit cold turkey is amazing
This should have been done everywhere at the millennium. Smoking would have been seen as so last century.
Load More Replies...Stoptober, i like that, have an upvote +1. BTW yesterday was the first day of not smoking for me in years.
Load More Replies...Unfortunately the rate of vaping is shooting through the roof. This is so disappointing with how low smoking smoking rates were becoming In Australia.
"The percentage of adults that smoke cigarettes is lower than it has been historically." I suspect it's still rather higher than it was prior to 1500.
Teen pregnancy is way down
Yes! And that is how you reduce the number of abortions, not by making abortions illegal sending women to dangerous situations.
Load More Replies...The American religious right is working overtime to reverse this trend
Sadly true. While also making pregnancy more dangerous.
Load More Replies...This is true for teen birth rates. We really don't have decent data about teen pregnancy rates.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/02/why-is-the-teen-birth-rate-falling/
Load More Replies...There have been times when the number of teen pregnancies went down because the number of teen agers went down. What's important is the rate.
Negative side: it is now common to wait until you're forty and then feel surprised when having a kid is not so easy anymore. I got pregnant at 19 and having a family is the beat thing that ever happenes to me. And now that my kid moved out I'm not even forty years and so happy I did it while I had so much more energy in me!
I had mine when I was just one month shy of my 18th birthday. Completely unexpected as I was being treated for a hormone condition to do with pituitary gland tumor. I haven't been able to get pregnant since and I'm almost 40. (I've considered myself prematurely menopausal LOL. ) My daughter hasn't moved out yet, as she has a disability. But I feel like I got the rest of my life to look forward to doing everything, and anything I want now.
Load More Replies...But we need all rapists, including relatives, to be dealt with more.
Some „garage-scientists“ in Germany have invented energy production plants that create green hydrogen from literally every kind of waste you can imagine. It will revolutionize local and state energy production to a never seen before level. The company is called Uniwastec and is based in Switzerland
I believe they are talking about this: https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/-we-will-produce-carbon-negative-green-hydrogen-from-non-recyclable-waste-at-zero-or-below-zero-cost-/2-1-1162744
thanks for the link. when I see terms like "green Hydrocarbon(hydrogen, propane etc)" I start questioning things. There was a silly propaganda push in the US for "clean coal" a few years ago. Coal is more certainly not remotely clean no matter what you say about it. This on the other hand is pretty interesting. I'd like to see more of the data though. The process uses electricity to burn waste(Im simplifying it) so the electricity has to come from somewhere. Still interesting. I just hope its not a thing of pushing numbers around.
Load More Replies...Wait! Does this mean we are looking at the birth of Mr Fusion? Can I have a DeLorean with a Flux capacitor too?
If you try really hard and save your money.
Load More Replies...Very strange that Uniwastec itself claims to already have an astonishing range of waste processing services with unheard-of benefits, yet seems barely mentioned outside of its own website. I found a couple of churnalism bits (clearly recycled press releases) and a bunch of hype posts on LinkedIn, and that's about it. Hmm.
This is so awesome and you know the government is going to abolish everything they found and try to monopolize it in America.
The orcas are doing great work.
We have one in our town. He's a traffic warden, but no one argues with him
Load More Replies...That's a bit vague. What great work are they doing? I live in the Pacific Northwest so we see them in the wild in the Puget Sound but I don't know any that are working.
There were some news stories out recently about them attacking yachts
Load More Replies...Yeah.. too bad the windmills are apparently killing them... they're driving them crazy & allegedly committing suicide. There is no scientific evidence of this. But trump said it. Sooo... it MUST be true/s
Specifically in the USA, it seems like more ppl are learning that food corporations are slowly killing us with s****y seed oils, refined sugars, preservatives and dyes. I’ve noticed a lot more ppl interested in local bakeries, fresh food, healthy sourced, organic farm fresh foods since Covid
And a lot of people are growing some of their own food! Whether it's a backyard garden or a tomato plant in a container. It's beautiful. All of it.
Some of them are ultra refined. Canola, safflower, corn, vegetable, sunflower. I actually fry in unrefined olive oil now because of it. As long as you don't hit smoke point it's actually way better than using a refined light oil with higher smoke point. It's expensive though
Load More Replies...S****y seed oils? I'm guessing they are not talking about sunflower, canola or such olis?
I assumed they meant rapeseed oil, which essentially is canola.
Load More Replies...I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all but this one I believe 100%. An unhealthy America feeds the processed food industry which then feeds the medical industry which then feeds the drug industry. If people just layed off sugars, refined carbs and seed oil induced products their body would suddenly normalize and stop being in a perpetual insulin state.
When we all cooked from scratch, this was a small issue. Now, we seem to be returning to home-raised foods.
It’s so easy to repopulate the earth of rare plants now through tissue culture. Two years ago Brazil was freaking out trying to keep their last remaining spiritus sancti plants to themselves and today, anyone can have them in their house and there is no market for poachers.
Ditto for the Wollemi pine in Australia. Back in 1995 there were only a dozen or so plants in existence. Now more than 1500 people in 31 countries are growing it from cuttings, and the price is under $120. Another success back from extinction is the Lord Howe Island stick insect. Formerly believed to be extinct. Now there are thousands and as a pet it can be bought for under $15.
Yeah I wanna see if it really does taste like banana candy or if it's a myth
Load More Replies...Yeah, well I just checked and the price for one is $120-$300 so not ANYONE can have them.
I am a plant keeper so I am definitely gonna buy this! And if I can breed them I'll share them around as well so everyone can have them :)
Load More Replies...For as long as they have a tit of a president, Brazil should continue to freak out.
Technically possible but hugely expensive. How many plants to re-establish say one hectare of rainforest? And how many man-hours over how many years?
I think ozone layer is slowly healing itself (as well as my depression)
lmao if no one could see the post that would be such a funny comment to stumble upon
Load More Replies...Huh, by following the science we fixed a problem we created. Let's jeep doing that!
I know! I never would've thought it possible that listening to the science would actually help! /s
Load More Replies...Ozone is. Last time I looked the ozone hole was down 50% from when it was worst. It's going to take more time to get the ozone hole right down to zero because some CFCs have a lifetime in the atmosphere of longer than a hundred years.
I’m sure that you were depression is slower healing than the ozone layer, but I’m happy that you are healing. PTSD as a a mother with a son that has severe depressive disorder is really hard. I just want everyone to be functionally happy
actually scientist have confirmed that the hole in the ozone is no longer existent and is "over healed"
The ozone layer over Antarctica has grown to the size of Nth America, so…
Cancer is getting easier and easier to treat and less lethal.
Age reversing technology might be around the corner (likely only available for the ultra rich unless society does something)
Yay, we're heading for a dystopian future where a few biologically immortal oligarchs rules the world well the rest of us die in their warehouses. /s
I wouldn’t want to see my family and friends all die around me, whilst I cling to life. For what? The natural order exists for a reason.
yay for less cancer, nay for age reversal, I've read too much scifi (Scythe)
It’s really sad to think that I could still have my mom. But at the same time I think about young kids that are still living because of all of the progress they have made. And I know that my mother would be the first one to give up everything for a young child. My mother led a great life, and we definitely had a great mother. I just hope and pray that if these kids ever have to deal with cancer, it will be some thing easy to get rid of and not this big ordeal and ruining someone’s financial status or someone’s health.
I think there have been experiments that basically showed the blood of youth can make the old more youthful. Strapping a compatible child to your back and hooking up their blood flow to yours would probably make you younger and them older.
Child mortality is way down. People are voluntarily limiting their fertility by using birth control, so there is no "population bomb" to speak of. Extreme poverty is much lower than it has been in previous decades.
Yes. In every country around the world for which there is even partly reliable data, the birth rate is declining. Not just in Europe, the Americas, China, Russia, India and Pakistan, but throughout Africa as well.
In every country female education linked to declining birth rates
Load More Replies...There'll be a population bomb in US. The abortion and birth control availability laws are changing at turbo speed. Women will have no choice if they do get pregnant. Old white Men coming up with the laws, of course. No clue how life is as a woman
How has the population of the world more than doubled in the last 40 years then?
the average life expectancy in the 1400s was 1 in 4 to reach the age of 12 i think were doing much better
Great, but Australia still admits more than 500,000 people each year which we cannot afford to house, teach, or employ.
You write voluntarily, but the correct expression should in my opinion be ABLE TO. Birth control has not been available everywhere until recently.
We have more knowledge and connectivity at our fingertips than ever before. Our ancestors may have only had a 5th grade education but we can Google lecture videos of nuclear physics.
Watch it enough and maybe you will,never know till you try!
Load More Replies...And look up cat videos, don't forget the cat videos!
Load More Replies...On the down side…social media. Poisoning souls since…I dunno 19 something, whenever it raised its ugly head. 🤷♀️
Social media ruins the Internet. There's no changing my mind.
Load More Replies...Unfortunately there’s also a lot of misinformation and garbage floating around out there in cyberworld.
I cannot disagree, but remember there have always been stupid people who believed in withces, leprechauns etc, but nowadays it is much easier for the not so stupid to find out whether a claim has any substance to it.
Load More Replies...It is, but remember that most anyone can edit information.
Load More Replies...And yet most people instead of cross researching will instead automatically believe "Dave" on social media. Even when he says things like "It's true! If you stick a carrot in your ear you can understand people speaking another language!" It's why I got rid of all social media. Apart from Bored Panda of course, because everybody on here is just as crazy with a weird sense of humor as me.
Yeah, you sure can. Unfortunately, nobody really does. Instead we get viral support for falsehood like "private jets are a big climate killer!" (global air travel accounts for 2.5% of global emissions, and private jets account for less than 5% of air travel emissions) and 100 corporations are responsible for 71% of emissions (no, that study tallied all downstream emissions to the corporation, i.e all the emissions from your tailpipe get attributed to the oil company, and not the person making the choice to drive)
Alien: Describe your species. Human: In my pocket, I have a device that allows me to access the entirety of my species' knowledge. I use it to look at cat videos and argue with people I don't know.
I’m an environmental consultant. Human health based requirements for concentrations of chemicals in the environment have been decreasing over the years. This means that polluters are being held to higher standards and sites that are getting cleaned up are required to be cleaner. I was concerned under the Trump administration we’d see a serious backslide in these requirements, but we are making progress at the state and local levels.
This is happening on an international level too. China is eliminating residential coal-burning, which is greatly improving air quality in their cities, and India is replacing dung-burning with induction cook stoves and LPG stoves. This does wonders for air quality in Delhi as well as household air quality for the poorest Indians.
Yes. Carbon monoxide in the atmosphere is declining everywhere. Ditto oxides of nitrogen, photochemical smog, soot from diesel trucks, acid rain, volatile organic carbon. All of these are declining in the atmosphere. In the oceans and rivers, there's less chemical pollution of all kinds, and less discharge of hot water. Runoff of fertilizer from farms is down to 50% of the peak value. People can now fish and farm oysters in harbours that used to be heavily polluted. And, most impressive of all, cities are no longer full of the foul smells they used to produce 40 years ago. And the Great Barrier Reef is the healthiest it's ever been since records began.
Is that seriously the case about the Great Barrier Reef? Can you provide a citation on that? It has experienced a number of really serious bleaching events over the past decade or so. If it is not only getting better but is "the healthiest it's been since records began", I'd really love to hear about it. Coral reefs the world over are dying, because as sea temperatures rise, corals release their photosynthetic symbiotic organisms, turn white, and die of starvation. The average sea surface temperature is rising across the world every year. There are corals that are resilient to temperature changes, but I can't imagine how one could claim the Great Barrier Reef is "the healthiest it's ever been" given the circumstances. Quite the opposite in fact.
Load More Replies...During COVID-19, I remember seeing a picture of a city in India with smog so bad you couldn't see across the city. They had a picture of the same city, the same spot, took the same picture, and you could see the mountain range in the distance, the sky was so clear.
I worked in Water Quality for many years. Part of the issue with allowing less of chemicals is that the tests can't keep up. We want lower acceptable limits of hazardous compounds, but let's developed the technology to test at that level!
"Researchers at Yale University and Columbia University collaborated with the World Economic Forum to measure the cleanliness and environmental friendliness of 180 countries around the world. Top 10 Cleanest Countries in the World 2022 : Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany."
India and China have no pollution standards for manufacturers, their largest sources of pollution. So it's concerning that they are cracking down on their poorest communities and the way they cook food and make private construction materials.
the 5 most polluting countries on the planet : China (30%) United States (15%) India (7%) Russia (5%) Japan (4%). Sources: UNHCR, World Bank and The Times of India.
Load More Replies...My developmental disabled kid joined the cross country team. He missed the first meet because he had COVID, dropped out of the second meet due to dehydration but came in second in his third meet. More importantly than that, I've seen his team mates care and support him every step of the way.
After several years of decreasing mobility to the point of being housebound, I had a hip replacement 12 weeks ago, and last week, I did a 31 mile bicycle trip to Venice Beach for the first time in over five years!
After all the critical and nitpicking articles, this is a joy to read. I wish all the commentators were as excited as I am about the positive things instead of getting weighed down by the negatives they focus on.
Load More Replies...Bouche and Audi are now fixed, and will not be causing any kittens.
I work with troubled kids. One of my former students, who used to have a lot of behavior problems, just graduated a vocational school, has a job, and is getting his first apartment.
The rhino population is rebounding. They came perilously close to being extinct. There are now over 23,000 in the wild as the result of a clamp down on poaching.
When I was a little kid in America, India was almost shorthand for brutal, horrifying poverty. Today, India has a higher life expectancy than America did when I was a little kid. It's improved more than 30 years over the last 55 years. Imagine: You're 55 years older, but only 30 years closer to death.
My nephew spent a long weekend with me, we had a lovely time. I never thought that would happen.
My developmental disabled kid joined the cross country team. He missed the first meet because he had COVID, dropped out of the second meet due to dehydration but came in second in his third meet. More importantly than that, I've seen his team mates care and support him every step of the way.
After several years of decreasing mobility to the point of being housebound, I had a hip replacement 12 weeks ago, and last week, I did a 31 mile bicycle trip to Venice Beach for the first time in over five years!
After all the critical and nitpicking articles, this is a joy to read. I wish all the commentators were as excited as I am about the positive things instead of getting weighed down by the negatives they focus on.
Load More Replies...Bouche and Audi are now fixed, and will not be causing any kittens.
I work with troubled kids. One of my former students, who used to have a lot of behavior problems, just graduated a vocational school, has a job, and is getting his first apartment.
The rhino population is rebounding. They came perilously close to being extinct. There are now over 23,000 in the wild as the result of a clamp down on poaching.
When I was a little kid in America, India was almost shorthand for brutal, horrifying poverty. Today, India has a higher life expectancy than America did when I was a little kid. It's improved more than 30 years over the last 55 years. Imagine: You're 55 years older, but only 30 years closer to death.
My nephew spent a long weekend with me, we had a lovely time. I never thought that would happen.
