The media doesn’t provide you with an correct image of the world. This isn’t to say that we’re not reporting the reality or that we’re making info up. Quite, our career has a pure tendency to intensify the unfavorable as a result of the unfavorable is often what we imply after we consider the information.
Reviews of a unusual new “illness X” within the Democratic Republic of the Congo is “information”; the truth that about 2.2 billion instances and 12.7 million deaths from malaria have been averted since 2000 isn’t. Estimates that 2024 would be the warmest 12 months on document get quite a lot of consideration; the chart-busting improve in renewable power, much less so. One-off violent crimes make the information; longer-term tendencies exhibiting declines in violent crime general, not a lot.
2024 was removed from excellent. There was continued warfare in Gaza and Sudan, new warfare in Lebanon, simply extra warfare, interval. Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Workplace brings with it uncertainty and actual hazard, not least to public well being by means of his nominated well being secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his vaccine-questioning beliefs — simply in time for a potential chicken flu pandemic. And it could simply be potential that humanity is knocking on the door of synthetic basic intelligence — which could possibly be excellent or very, very dangerous.
However there was real progress all year long, typically beneath the headlines, in every little thing from animal welfare to expertise to local weather coverage to geopolitics. Listed here are 9 optimistic tales from 2024 that we hope will lay the groundwork for a greater 2025.
1) The primary new schizophrenia drug in a long time was authorized
Our World in Information’s Saloni Dattani is one in all my favourite writers — which is why we put her on the Future Good 50 listing in 2022. Few consultants are higher in a position to make use of information to assist readers perceive when progress in drugs and public well being is really being made, over each the long run and the quick.
For an end-of-year publish on her Substack, Dattani picked 5 notable medical breakthroughs in 2024. The one which stood out to me was the approval of Xanomeline-trospium, or Cobenfy, the primary new schizophrenia drug to hit the market in a long time.
Schizophrenia is a horrifying psychological illness that afflicts greater than 3.5 million People. Whereas medication do exist and the situation might be managed with therapy and help, disproportionate charges of individuals with schizophrenia expertise homelessness and fall sufferer to suicide. They die 15 to twenty years earlier on average than the remainder of the inhabitants. And regardless of a long time of analysis, we’ve largely failed to seek out higher, simpler therapies.
Cobenfy presents hope, nevertheless. It targets totally different receptors within the mind than present therapies, and it appears to successfully assault signs whereas lowering debilitating unintended effects. That may make the distinction between life and loss of life.
2) New York Metropolis is lastly going to get congestion pricing (in all probability)
It’s been practically 20 years since then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg steered that drivers going into Manhattan — dwelling to a number of the most congested streets in all of America — ought to pay a cost. That plan was lastly set to enter motion this summer time, when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pulled a sudden about-face. The said motive was that the $15 cost for many vehicles would damage Manhattan’s financial restoration and put an undue burden on suburban and outer-borough drivers. The true motive was that Democrats feared that suburban voters would punish them in November.
Properly … that also did sort of occur. However just a little greater than every week after the election, Hochul introduced that she would convey again congestion pricing, albeit with a 40 % minimize within the toll, charging most passenger vehicles $9 to cross into probably the most crowded components of Manhattan.
That was disappointing to many transit and environmental advocates, and the cash gained’t be sufficient to repair the New York subway’s huge fiscal deficit. So why am I counting this as factor for 2024? As a result of regardless of all of the political shenanigans, congestion charging, a vital coverage for the local weather, is (virtually actually) lastly right here, for the primary time within the US. That was not a straightforward political raise, and my hope is that after we all notice the advantages of congestion pricing, perhaps it would open the door to do it elsewhere.
3) US dietary pointers may lastly acknowledge the worth of the common-or-garden bean
People eat quite a lot of protein, significantly greater than they want (for most individuals) and typically greater than dietary pointers advocate. That’s largely as a result of we eat quite a lot of animal meat. All that rooster and beef and turkey and pork has actual well being penalties, however it additionally contributes to America’s environmentally damaging and inhumane manufacturing unit farming system.
After all, protein is essential, particularly for these actively constructing energy and for the aged. If solely there have been a approach to get protein with out consuming animals. Hmm …
Oh proper, there’s. It’s known as beans and legumes. As former Future Good fellow Julieta Cardenas wrote final 12 months, “[B]eans are excessive in protein, environment friendly to develop, and may even enhance soil well being.” They’re low cost they usually’re tasty if you know the way to cook dinner them, and if you happen to’re the sort of particular person fearful about processed meals, they’re largely unprocessed. How can we get protein with out breaking the financial institution or hurting the surroundings or animals? Beans is how.
So I’m counting the information that beans and legumes received a starring function within the report of the 2025 US Dietary Advisory Committee, which advises the creation of the federal dietary pointers, as a significant piece of fine information. Eat extra beans. Please.
4) A Nobel Prize for really good AI
As my colleague Kelsey Piper wrote lately, it’s been a wild 12 months for AI. From company shenanigans to fashions that may motive to ongoing copyright disputes, 2024 felt just like the 12 months when AI received actual. Which, given how transformative and disruptive AI is proving to be, is sufficient to make me greater than just a little fearful. Will AI steal our jobs? Our votes? Our lives? It’s all probably on the desk.
Amid the existential concern, we shouldn’t lose sight of the large good that AI, correctly harnessed, can result in. This 12 months, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry went partly to Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis and his colleague John Jumper for his or her work in creating AlphaFold 2, a machine-learning protein-structure predictor.
Proteins are the literal constructing blocks of nature, and having the ability to predict their three-dimensional construction is extremely essential to utilizing them to design medication or different supplies. Earlier than AlphaFold got here round, it might take months and even years of lab experiments to establish the construction of a protein from its string of amino acids. AlphaFold 2 minimize that point significantly, which guarantees to hurry up the method of growing new medicines.
As I as soon as wrote, AlphaFold may be the very best instance of AI for good. We are able to solely hope we’ll see extra such examples sooner or later.
5) The AI election deepfakes that weren’t
The primary piece I wrote this 12 months was about how 2024 can be a record-breaking 12 months of worldwide elections. Greater than 60 nations representing roughly half the world’s inhabitants have been set to go to the polls in 2024, greater than any 12 months prior to now. India, Indonesia, the UK, Taiwan, and, in fact, the US all held main elections. As many individuals put it, democracy was on the poll in 2024.
Past issues about how the elections themselves would play out and whether or not the forces of far-right populism would proceed to grab energy, there have been extra existential questions in regards to the elections themselves. Above all else: At a second when AI more and more had the flexibility to turbocharge deepfakes and different types of trust-eroding propaganda, might these elections really be fought pretty?
For probably the most half, the reply was sure. Whereas there have been examples of mis- and disinformation, a few of it aided by AI, on the entire elections prevented the worst fears of AI deepfakes. As one piece put it, it was the “apocalypse that wasn’t.”
How you’re feeling about 2024’s elections will largely depend upon how you’re feeling in regards to the outcomes. However for probably the most half, even with the expansion of AI instruments, these outcomes could possibly be trusted. Which may be the very best we will hope for now.
6) Vaccines roll out in opposition to one in all humanity’s oldest killers
Malaria has been killing human beings for hundreds of years, if not far longer. Its most well-known victims are believed to incorporate figures like Alexander the Nice, Oliver Cromwell, and the poet Dante Alighieri. At this time, although, we all know the names of only a few malaria victims. That’s not as a result of the illness has been eradicated — practically 600,000 folks died of the illness in 2023 alone — however as a result of its victims at the moment are virtually totally very poor folks dwelling in a number of the very poorest nations in sub-Saharan Africa.
However 2024 introduced us a number of steps nearer to doing in these poor nations what the wealthy world has already managed: ending malaria’s loss of life toll. In January, Cameroon grew to become the primary nation to start out routine vaccinations in opposition to malaria, the primary fruits of a multi-decade effort to create efficient vaccines in opposition to the mass killer. In Might, the Central African Republic grew to become the primary nation to obtain doses of an much more efficient vaccine known as R21. Altogether, vaccines reached youngsters in 17 nations the place the illness is endemic in 2024, with extra to come back.
This may be the one finest piece of stories all 12 months. And if you happen to’d wish to play a component, you may even volunteer in a problem trial for brand new malaria vaccines and coverings. If Future Good’s Dylan Matthews can do it, you may too.
It appears like an honest-to-goodness miracle: youngsters born with hereditary deafness, given the flexibility to listen to. However that’s what occurred to 5 youngsters this 12 months. A part of a research at Mass Eye and Ear, a specialty hospital in Boston, the youngsters have been born deaf due to mutations within the OTOF gene, which fails to provide a protein mandatory for the transmission of sound indicators from the ear to the mind. Repair the mutation, and maybe listening to could possibly be restored.
That’s exactly what researchers on the hospital did. In a research, a restored model of the OTOF gene was launched to the youngsters by way of an inactive virus, a course of often called gene remedy. For 5 out of the six youngsters within the research, listening to was restored to the purpose the place they have been in a position to have interaction in oral dialog. It was the primary such instance of utilizing gene remedy to deal with this type of deafness, however it virtually actually gained’t be the final.
8) Poverty in Indonesia hit a document low
Indonesia typically will get missed, however it shouldn’t. With 277 million folks, it’s the fourth most populous nation, and its islands, forests, and coral reefs make it one of many most essential biodiversity scorching spots on the earth. Additionally it is, quietly, one of many brightest tales in international growth. Thirty years in the past, it was within the grip of the dictator Suharto, and 25 years in the past, it was struggling beneath the toll of the Asian monetary disaster. Twenty years in the past, 170,000 Indonesians died within the 2004 tsunami. But at present it’s vibrant and democratic — for probably the most half.
This summer time marked one other step ahead for what can also be the world’s largest Muslim nation. Poverty fell to a document low of 9.5 %. It’s the sort of undeniable fact that goes largely unreported within the international information — I needed to search to seek out it. However for the folks in Indonesia who skilled this modification, little or no could possibly be extra essential.
9) The expertise of watching Philadelphia Eagles working again Saquon Barkley
Now, I’ll admit, this may solely seem like a “good factor” for a really particular a part of the nation that occurs to root for a really particular workforce, so I suppose this qualifies extra as an really good factor for me. What can I say? Editorial prerogative and all that. However except you’re a New York Giants fan, there can solely be pleasure present in watching Barkley do issues like this whereas aiming to set the single-season dashing document:
When your working again seems to function in line with the physics of the Matrix motion pictures, it’s 12 months. Right here’s to a contented 2025.