The media doesn’t offer you an correct image of the world. This isn’t to say that we’re not reporting the reality or that we’re making details up. Relatively, our career has a pure tendency to intensify the unfavorable as a result of the unfavorable is normally what we imply after we consider the information.
Stories 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 yr on file get quite a lot of consideration; the chart-busting enhance in renewable vitality, much less so. One-off violent crimes make the information; longer-term traits displaying 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 hen flu pandemic. And it might simply be potential that humanity is knocking on the door of synthetic common intelligence — which may very well be excellent or very, very dangerous.
However there was real progress all year long, usually beneath the headlines, in all the things from animal welfare to know-how 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 authorised
Our World in Information’s Saloni Dattani is considered one of my favourite writers — which is why we put her on the Future Excellent 50 checklist in 2022. Few specialists 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 brief.
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 could be managed with remedy and assist, 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, more practical remedies.
Cobenfy provides hope, nevertheless. It targets totally different receptors within the mind than current remedies, and it appears to successfully assault signs whereas decreasing debilitating unwanted effects. That may make the distinction between life and dying.
2) New York Metropolis is lastly going to get congestion pricing (in all probability)
It’s been practically twenty years since then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg steered that drivers going into Manhattan — residence to among the most congested streets in all of America — ought to pay a cost. That plan was lastly set to enter motion this summer season, when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul pulled a sudden about-face. The acknowledged cause was that the $15 cost for many automobiles would harm Manhattan’s financial restoration and put an undue burden on suburban and outer-borough drivers. The actual cause was that Democrats feared that suburban voters would punish them in November.
Properly … that also did type of occur. However somewhat greater than per week after the election, Hochul introduced that she would carry again congestion pricing, albeit with a 40 % reduce within the toll, charging most passenger automobiles $9 to cross into essentially 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 large fiscal deficit. So why am I counting this as a superb factor for 2024? As a result of regardless of all of the political shenanigans, congestion charging, an important coverage for the local weather, is (nearly actually) lastly right here, for the primary time within the US. That was not a straightforward political elevate, and my hope is that after we all understand the advantages of congestion pricing, perhaps it should open the door to do it elsewhere.
3) US dietary tips would possibly lastly acknowledge the worth of the standard bean
People eat quite a lot of protein, significantly greater than they want (for most individuals) and usually greater than dietary tips suggest. 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, but it surely additionally contributes to America’s environmentally harmful and inhumane manufacturing unit farming system.
In fact, protein is essential, particularly for these actively constructing power 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 referred to as beans and legumes. As former Future Excellent fellow Julieta Cardenas wrote final yr, “[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 understand how to prepare dinner them, and for those who’re the type of individual fearful about processed meals, they’re largely unprocessed. How can we get protein with out breaking the financial institution or hurting the atmosphere or animals? Beans is how.
So I’m counting the information that beans and legumes acquired a starring position within the report of the 2025 US Dietary Advisory Committee, which advises the creation of the federal dietary tips, as a serious 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 yr for AI. From company shenanigans to fashions that may cause to ongoing copyright disputes, 2024 felt just like the yr when AI acquired actual. Which, given how transformative and disruptive AI is proving to be, is sufficient to make me greater than somewhat fearful. Will AI steal our jobs? Our votes? Our lives? It’s all doubtlessly on the desk.
Amid the existential concern, we shouldn’t lose sight of the great good that AI, correctly harnessed, can result in. This yr, 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 with the ability to predict their three-dimensional construction is extremely necessary to utilizing them to design medication or different supplies. Earlier than AlphaFold got here round, it may take months and even years of lab experiments to establish the construction of a protein from its string of amino acids. AlphaFold 2 reduce that point significantly, which guarantees to hurry up the method of creating new medicines.
As I as soon as wrote, AlphaFold may be the most effective 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 yr was about how 2024 could be a record-breaking yr of worldwide elections. Greater than 60 international locations representing roughly half the world’s inhabitants have been set to go to the polls in 2024, greater than any yr 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 considerations 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 concerning 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, may these elections really be fought pretty?
For essentially 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 averted 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 rely upon how you’re feeling concerning the outcomes. However for essentially the most half, even with the expansion of AI instruments, these outcomes may very well be trusted. Which may be the most effective we will hope for now.
6) Vaccines roll out in opposition to considered one of humanity’s oldest killers
Malaria has been killing human beings for 1000’s 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. Right this moment, 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 nearly solely very poor folks residing in among the very poorest international locations in sub-Saharan Africa.
However 2024 introduced us a number of steps nearer to doing in these poor international locations what the wealthy world has already managed: ending malaria’s dying toll. In January, Cameroon turned 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 Could, the Central African Republic turned the primary nation to obtain doses of an much more efficient vaccine referred to as R21. Altogether, vaccines reached youngsters in 17 international locations the place the illness is endemic in 2024, with extra to return.
This may be the one finest piece of stories all yr. And for those who’d wish to play an element, you’ll be able to even volunteer in a problem trial for brand new malaria vaccines and coverings. If Future Excellent’s Dylan Matthews can do it, you’ll be able to too.
It feels 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 yr. 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 essential for the transmission of sound indicators from the ear to the mind. Repair the mutation, and maybe listening to may very well 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 through an inactive virus, a course of generally known as gene remedy. For 5 out of the six youngsters within the research, listening to was restored to the purpose the place they have been capable of have interaction in oral dialog. It was the primary such instance of utilizing gene remedy to deal with this type of deafness, but it surely nearly actually gained’t be the final.
8) Poverty in Indonesia hit a file low
Indonesia usually will get missed, but it surely 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 necessary biodiversity sizzling spots on the planet. It is usually, quietly, one of many brightest tales in world 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 immediately it’s vibrant and democratic — for essentially the most half.
This summer season marked one other step ahead for what can be the world’s largest Muslim nation. Poverty fell to a file low of 9.5 %. It’s the type of proven fact that goes largely unreported within the world information — I needed to search to seek out it. However for the folks in Indonesia who skilled this modification, little or no may very well be extra necessary.
9) The expertise of watching Philadelphia Eagles working again Saquon Barkley
Now, I’ll admit, this would possibly solely look 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 until 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 speeding file:
When your working again seems to function in response to the physics of the Matrix films, you recognize it’s a superb yr. Right here’s to a cheerful 2025.
