The Progress Network

To Get Happier, Make Yourself Smaller Self-esteem is overrated. The better path to enlightenment is through contemplating one’s insignificance.

"What we really need to achieve both the perspective on life we need and the peace we crave is to get smaller in relation to everything and everyone else."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

"We tend to believe that to be happier, we need to become bigger in our own mind, and in the minds of others. But that’s wrong," writes TPN member Arthur Brooks.

😎3 Things That Went Right This Week😎
🇦🇷Argentina’s inflation rate is now 31%, down from 193% in October 2024.
🇪🇬Egypt eliminated trachoma.
🐷Scientists have figured out how to stop the body from rejecting a donor pig kidney.
theprogressnetwork.org/gene-editing...

TB cases fall for first time since pandemic Tuberculosis, or TB, remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers, claiming over 1.2 million lives and affecting an estimated 10.7 million people last year, the World Health Organization (W...

🤔Is it all good news?

😟No, more money is needed to eradicate this curable disease. @who.int says that global funding for TB has stagnated since 2020, with just $5.9 billion available in 2024 – far below the $22 billion annual target for 2027.

📉🌍The Daily Dose via the United Nations 📉🌍

Between 2015 and 2024, tuberculosis deaths have dropped by 46% in Africa!

Read all about it.

www.health.gov.au/ministers/th...

👏The HPV vaccine is nearly 100% effective at preventing cervical cancer.

🇦🇺Several countries may eliminate it by the 2030s and 40s, but Australia is on track to get there first.

"So I don't even know what you do with that fear except try and have as much fun as you can."

www.venturesandvisionaries.com/e/video-navi...

"If you're an AI doomsayer...and believe that we're going to be in some dystopian conglomeration of the Matrix and the Terminator in the next 5 years. The reality is if you actually believe that, we're screwed anyway," says TPN founder Zachary Karabell to Mordy Hackel on Ventures and Visionaries.

What Could Go Right? - The Baby Who Got His Own Cure One infant’s experimental rescue inspired a new framework to fast-track gene editing therapies.

😮This week in the What Could Go Right? newsletter we are talking about one infant’s experimental rescue that inspired a new framework to fast-track gene editing therapies.

20 years of tobacco control in the EU: are we moving towards a tobacco-free future? Twenty years after the European Union (EU) ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), a new WHO/Europe report shows that the EU has achieved important policy progress – yet t...

🤔Why does it matter?

☹️Tobacco continues to cause more premature deaths than any other behavioural or metabolic risk factor for health, accounting for 17% of all premature deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the EU.

www.who.int/europe/news/...

📉🇪🇺The Daily Dose via @who.int 🇪🇺📉

Between 2022 and 2010, tobacco use in Europe fell by 14%.

🐙Do MPAs work?

Iowa City Made Its Buses Free. Traffic Cleared, and So Did the Air.

🥅Their next goal?

🚴‍♀️Iowa City wanted to replace 55% of vehicle trips with sustainable alternatives like walking, biking and taking transit by 2050.

💰How will they pay for it?

💸The city is paying for it with a 1% increase in utility taxes and by doubling most public parking rates to $2 from $1.

📈Ridership has surpassed pre-pandemic levels by 18%.

📉People drove 1.8 million fewer miles on city streets,

📉Emissions dropped by 24,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.

📈According to the city, on-time arrivals have increased by 13%.

🧪In 2023, Iowa City conducted an experiment.

🚌What would happen if they made their buses free for two years using Covid-19 relief funds to pay for it?

🤓The results are now in:

What Could Go Right?: The Podcast Hosts Zachary Karabell & Emma Varvaloucas convene experts to discuss the central issues of our era and make the case for a brighter future.

🎧Want to listen to every episode of our AWARD WINNING (😱) podcast?

theprogressnetwork.org/podcast/

🥳We've won Bronze!

🙏Thank you to the Anthem Awards for recognizing the What Could Go Right? podcast in the Sustainability, Environment & Climate: Podcast or Audio category

🥰And, of course, thank you so much to all who voted!

🤔Which crimes fell the most?

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were significant drops across key categories, including rape, dowry deaths, riots and murders.

www.ndtv.com/india-news/i...

🧐How did this happen?

🚓Officials attribute the turnaround to sustained efforts to modernize policing and strengthen internal security.

🇮🇳📉The Daily Dose via @ndtv.com 🇮🇳📉

Violent crime in India has fallen by 29% in the past decade.

Scientists Have Trained Bumblebees to Understand a Form of Morse Code In the latest test of the tiny workings of bumblebee minds, scientists have taught the fuzzy insects to tell the difference between patterns of light – a kind of simplified Morse code – to find a suga...

🔦Scientists have taught bumblebees a kind of simplified Morse code, using different patterns of light.

🍯They rewarded them with sugary treats whenever they chose correctly.

👏Most of the bees chose the right pattern even when there was no reward.

www.sciencealert.com/scientists-h...

Three Rules for a Lasting Happy Marriage To keep the flame alive, put love at the center of your life.

"What keeps people in love is not what makes them fall in love in the first place," writes TPN member Arthur Brooks.

"Understanding this might just keep your partnership intact until you are 64—and beyond."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Korea pledges to phase out coal plants - The Korea Times Korea on Monday announced that it has joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), committing to close 40 coal-fired power plants by 2040. The an...

🇰🇷South Korea has pledged to phase out coal!

👏They are the second Asian nation to do so after Singapore.

🏭By 2040, the country will close all 40 of its existing coal-fired plants.

(H/T @sclif3124.bsky.social )

Women’s Financial Inclusion Is Rising, but Equal Access and Use Still Lag The Global Findex 2025 shows that women’s account ownership in low- and middle-income economies has reached 73%—a major gain since 2021. Yet 700 million women remain unbanked. Closing the gap requires...

🤔What happened?

🤳Mobile connectivity and digital accounts. With about 80% of women in developing economies owning a mobile phone, digitally enabled accounts make it easier and more convenient for them to use their accounts.

blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/...

🏦📈The Daily Dose via the World Bank 🏦📈

In 2014, only 50% of women who lived in low- and middle-income countries had a financial account.

That rate is now up to 73%!

Read all about it: www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

🇧🇷How Brazil turned their teenage pregnancy epidemic around.

🤔Catch her conversation with Dr. Laura Hosman co-founder and director of @asu-solarspell.bsky.social and managing editor of ASU Media Enterprise, @miaaarmstrong.bsky.social about the most effective ways to deliver information in stressful situations.

doingwellnews.substack.com/p/health-inf...

😬How can we process health information if we're already freaked out?

🧠"Being aware in the time of stress to say, 'I’m not going to remember this, let me put it over there so I can come back to it,'" advises Dr. Heather Ross co-director of @asu-solarspell.bsky.social Health.