E12: Free trade drives progress, and much more:
Tony Morley, March 11th 2025
Free trade drives progress, woolly mice, Blue Ghost sticks the landing, weather forecasting improves and much more:
"Free trade gave them cheaper goods, new technologies and access to consumers in other countries. It lifted millions and millions from hunger and poverty." — Johan Norberg, The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World 10/2024
No One Wins a Trade War
William J. Bernstein
"Even so, the broad benefits of free trade, which accrue to an enormous share of the world’s population, far outweigh the concentrated harms. In that sense, the free-trade system is, as Winston Churchill quipped of democracy, the worst form of economics—except for all of the others that have been tried from time to time."
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Don't bite the hand that trades with you.
This week, President Donald Trump has been back and forth on trade tariffs, but it is, or at least should be, abundantly clear, is that American growth, prosperity and living standards will suffer under the weight of tariffs. To quote Matt Ridley, in The Rational Optimist, How Prosperity Evolves —
"The message from history is so blatantly obvious – that free trade causes mutual prosperity while protectionism causes poverty – that it seems incredible that anybody ever thinks otherwise." "There is not a single example of a country opening its borders to trade and ending up poorer. Free trade works for countries even if they do it and their neighbours do not."
On the whole, the American portfolio of trade partners is remarkably limited in diversity, and to be threatening and then subsequently kicking off a trade war stands to benefit few, but least of all, the greater mass of Americans.
"This map illustrates the top import partner of every U.S. state as of November 2024. The data is sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau."
Bruno Venditti
Can genetically engineered 'woolly' mice help bring back the mammoth?
Genetically modified woolly mice are a left-field breakthrough on the road to un-extincting the woolly mammoth by the team at Colossal Biosciences.
"Woolly Mouse is not just a feat of engineering,” said Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Ben Lamm. “It’s really proving that our targeted approach to precision editing based on very deep computational analysis works."
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Ewen Callaway
Piezoelectric Catalyst Destroys Forever Chemicals: Startup secures $16 million to deploy PFAS-busting tech for wastewater
Swiss startup Oxyle has just developed a piezoelectric catalyst that can eliminate 99 percent of these forever chemicals in wastewater streams and prevent them from entering water supplies. The team has secured a $16 million USD funding round, building on a previous $3 million USD pre-seed round in 2022, to develop, scale and deploy the technology. Rather than just filtering and relocating the PFAS from wastewater, the team aims to destroy the unwanted chemicals altogether.
Rachel Berkowitz
Today's four-day weather forecasts are as accurate as the one-day forecasts from 30 years ago
Today's four-day weather forecasts are as accurate as the one-day forecasts from 30 years ago, and that's just the beginning. — Weather forecasts have become much more accurate; we now need to make them available to everyone
By: Hannah Ritchie
And when it comes to forecasting hurricanes, "the 72-hour error in the 1960s and 70s was over 400 nautical miles. Today, it’s less than 80 miles."
Can AI and automated planes help prevent plane crashes?
When it comes to air traffic control, AI is "helping out tremendously", and that's just the beginning.
“AI is already playing a crucial role in reducing aviation accidents and loss of life by improving situational awareness, predictive maintenance and decision-making processes. In air traffic control (ATC) and collision avoidance, AI is helping out tremendously.”
Faras Ghani
Air travel has already improved dramatically in recent decades, and as highlighted in The Up Wing, Edition 9
US airlines have flown 13.3 trillion passenger miles since the last airline crash. That's 2.3 light-years, or 143,208 times the distance between the Earth and Sun
By: Max Roser
Blue Ghost sticks the Moon landing and gets to work on its 60-day mission
“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the Moon,” Fire Aerospace, Blue Ghost lander has just successfully completed a soft landing on the surface of the Moon; only the second commercial vehicle to do so in history. The lander will undertake a diverse scope of experiments and operations during an estimated 60-day mission period.
MARCIA DUNN
Mink and Fox Fur Demand in Decline
Mink and fox fur production has fallen dramatically over recently decades; part of a larger trend of decreased fur demand globally across many species and countries.
Katharina Buchholz
A new breakthrough blood test sensor could detect birth risk farl early than existing tests, with the potential to help countless mothers and unborn children
Breakthrough new sensor can detect pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, as early as 11 weeks with a simple blood test – well before traditional screening methods.
Aerospace student refines 100-year-old math problem, in breakthrough with important wind turbine design potential
A Penn State aerospace engineering student, Divya Tyagi, has just refined a century-old math problem, converting it into a “simpler, more elegant form, making it easier to use and explore.” The breakthrough, published in Wind Energy Science, expands on her aerodynamic research and holds the potential to unlock future advancements in wind turbine design and optimization.
“I created an addendum to Glauert’s problem which determines the optimal aerodynamic performance of a wind turbine by solving for the ideal flow conditions for a turbine in order to maximize its power output,”
“The real impact will be on the next generation of wind turbines using the new knowledge that has been unveiled,” Schmitz said. “As for Divya’s elegant solution, I think it will find its way into the classrooms, across the country and around the world.”
Kevin Sliman
A 4-year wind turbine paint trial in the North Sea could help inform how best to protect sea birds from turbine strikes
The United Kingdom is set to undertake an experimental wind turbine painting campaign in an innovative attempt to address and reduce bird strikes and protect wildlife.
The 4-year trial is rooted in previous work undertaken in Norway and will see a number of different paints and patterns tested. The Norwegian study published in 2020 found that painting just one turbine blade black reduced bird strikes by a non-trivial 70%. The trial to unfold in the North Sea will serve as a significant upscale of the concept and undoubtedly yield valuable results that could potentially inform the global wind farm power generation industry. The work is planned to move from the lab to large-scale deployment in 2027.
Rachel Keenan
There are enormous reserves of critical energy minerals at the bottom of the sea. Harvesting them could change the future of energy; if we can get it right.
"A 2019 report from the World Bank noted that the materials needed to build clean energy technologies are so mineral-intensive that they would require an estimated 500 percent increase in the production of things like graphite, lithium, and cobalt by the year 2050."
"There are currently a total of 50 “critical” minerals — that is, minerals so essential for our technology, our national defense, or our green energy ambitions that the government has declared access to them essential for the country. And of those 50, 37 can actually be found in ocean deposits within America’s continental shelf."
The team at Kite and Key are brilliant, check out more of their work here.
A new and innovative 2,500 ton laminated timber roof has just been completed on the Sydney Fish Market
At 200 m (656 ft), 2,500 tons, and consisting of 594 laminated timber beams, the newly completed roof atop the Sydney Fish Market is a beacon of innovation in sustainable architectural design and construction. A marvel of both form and function.
Multiplex
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