Tony Morley, June 11th, 2024 Welcome to The Up Wing, Edition 2, the best in progress and optimistic news, collated, curated, and delivered weekly. We report on the past, present, and future of human progress, progress studies, and optimistic news. We're pro-growth, free markets, classical liberalism, Enlightenment, science,
Tony Morley, June 4th, 2024 "On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?” — Thomas Babington Welcome to The Up Wing, Edition 1, the best in progress and optimistic news, collated, curated, and delivered weekly. We report
It's one of the best headlines of the year you might have missed. The average global life expectancy is forecasted to increase by nearly five years by 2050, from 73.6 years to 78.1 years, as the average global burden of disease continues to fall. Global life
“He related the case of one woman whose two little boys, freezing and on the brink of starvation, had been caught stealing food. When a policeman took the boys home, he found the mother with six other children ‘literally huddled in a little back room, with no furniture but two
The wealthier a country is, the healthier it is. Variation in income can explain over seventy per cent of the variation in infant and child mortality. No country with an income per capita above $10,000 has an infant mortality rate above two percent.” — Progress, Ten Reasons to Look Forward
“Infant mortality is such a powerful indicator because low rates are impossible to achieve without having a combination of several critical conditions that define good quality of life.” — Vaclav Smil in Numbers Don’t Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World A world of tiny coffins For
"Between 2000 and 2017, the global maternal mortality rate fell by 38%. In low-income countries, the decline was more dramatic still, with a reduction of 46%." The loss of a mother or a child during pregnancy or birth is a heartbreaking family tragedy, one that has been with
The introduction of factory manufacturing in the developing world changed the lives of more than a billion people, and in doing so, it helped to lift an entire continent out of extreme poverty. Factories in developing countries are often portrayed as involuntary labor camps at worst and as centers of
@tonymmorley A groundbreaking trial[1] first published in the British Journal of Urology (BJU) International[2] has discovered that recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) can potentially be prevented for up to nine years using an oral spray vaccine. UTIs, which afflict half of all women and one in five men,
The best in progress and optimistic news, collated, curated, and delivered weekly
In the early hours of April 3rd, 2024, Taiwan was struck by a significant earthquake, with its epicenter located off the eastern coast. The quake, measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, sent tremors rippling across the island, awakening memories of past devastation. At the time of writing, the earthquake,
New research conducted by scientists from the University of Sheffield’s Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation suggests that applying crushed rock to farmers' fields could have significant benefits beyond reducing greenhouse gases. The study builds upon previous research from 2020[1] on enhanced rock weathering, a technique that
During the industrial era, the cost of artificial light fell off a cliff — and the road to illumination was paved with ingenuity and slaughter. — Genius and blood: How cheap light transformed civilization, Tony Morley for Big Think “Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total
“Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.” ― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's
"The incredible social and human rights improvements over the last two centuries are powerful evidence that further progress remains possible." You don’t have to travel too far back into the past to find evidence of widespread and systemic romantic misery. To visit England at the dawn of
@tonymmorley "One day your youngest daughter develops a nasty cough. Smoke from the indoor fire is weakening her lungs. You can’t afford antibiotics, and one month later she is dead. This is extreme poverty." — Factfulness, Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why
@tonymmorley A new antibiotic discovered by researchers in diseased potatoes may be effective in combatting fungal infections in plants and humans "From a pharmaceutical and agricultural perspective, solanimycin may represent a potentially exciting discovery” — Miguel A. Matilla Before the serendipitous discovery of penicillin in 1928 and subsequent research, development,
@tonymmorley One of the best events of the year unfolded quietly in 17 rice fields in the Philippines this October. "For the first time, farmers in the Philippines have cultivated Golden Rice on a larger scale and harvested almost 70 tonnes" "This autumn will probably go down
Tony Morley for The Up Wing “Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put
"On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?" —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Review of Southey’s Colloquies on Society, c. 1830 Over the last 200 years, the lives of average people in every country
"Unfortunately, helium is about as non-renewable as a resource comes." The good news is that a new "helium discovery is the supply breakthrough science, medicine, and industry needed" — Tony Morley for Big Think "Without an abundant and relatively inexpensive supply of helium, a number of
