• In Afghanistan, women have been allowed to go back to Kabul University. Twitter.
• An experimental drug that addresses anhedonia could increase the brain’s capacity to experience pleasure and herald a new era of precision medicine in psychiatry. Neo.Life.
• Reported crime in Japan hits postwar low for seventh year running. Nippon.
• A new distribution system is helping African countries ramp up vaccinations. New York Times.
• How the US women’s soccer team won its battle for equal pay. El Pais.
• In Uganda, a new approach to ending sexual and gender based violence: training men. Minority Africa.
• Germany: Traffic deaths fall to lowest point in 60 years. DW.
• New sickle cell treatment given to first patients in England. BBC News.
• Guaranteed income program in DC lowered rates of food insecurity, report says. The Hill.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• 99 good news stories you probably didn’t hear about in 2021. Future Crunch.
• 192 ways the world got better in 2021. Reasons to be Cheerful.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

• At 1.9%, Nebraska now has the lowest unemployment rate of any state, ever. Wall Street Journal.
• Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is recovering from life-threatening coral bleaching episodes. NPR.
• A new stem-cell treatment has cured a man of Type-1 Diabetes. The New York Times.
• US jobless claims hit 52-year low after seasonal adjustments. AP News.
• Portugal goes coal-free long before deadline. CNN.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, Future Crunch, and Reasons to be Cheerful.

These are crazy times, right? We haven’t had a do a wide-scale quarantine like this since the 1918 Flu. It’s good this sort of thing doesn’t happen more than once every 100 years or so. At least we can learn from the past. Looking at the 1918 Flu, we know social distancing does slow the spread of the disease and saves lives. It might need to last months, but that’s better than ending it early. The most important take-away is we’ve been through this before, we can go through it again. Plus, we have much better medical technology now than we did then, so it likely won’t be as bad as 1918. Continue reading →