The Progress Network

As male birth control gets closer to reality, men are lining up for clinical trials It was long believed that men wouldn't reliably use birth control, but many are signing up for clinical trials of experimental male contraceptives.

She had initially been worried that recruitment for the Phase 2a trial, taking place in New Zealand, would stall, & has been pleasantly surprised by how many men are lining up to take part," reports Annalisa Merelli.

'We are receiving emails from men all over the world asking to participate,' she said.

Men are showing up to participate in birth control trials.

'''Men want this,' said Nadja Mannowetz, the chief science officer and co-founder of YourChoice, the San Francisco-based biopharma startup that is conducting trials for YCT-529.

World creeps closer to eradicating human Guinea worm cases, with just 10 last year: Carter Center The Carter Center says there were only 10 reported cases of Guinea worm infections confined to three countries in 2025.

🪱In 1986, an estimated 3.5 million cases of guinea worm disease were recorded.

📉Last year, only 10 cases of guinea worm disease were recorded, the lowest number ever.

apnews.com/article/guin...

Stomach cancer used to be the main cause of cancer mortality in Japan; since then, rates have fallen dramatically Back in 1980, stomach cancer was the type of cancer that someone in Japan was most likely to die from. Its death rate — the number of deaths per 100,000 people — was over twice as high as the next lar...

🤔How come?

"Improvements in prevention, detection & treatment have all contributed to this huge decrease in stomach cancer death rates. Stomach cancer is often caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori; better hygiene & food safety have reduced its spread," writes @hannahritchie.bsky.social

🇯🇵📉The Daily Dose via @ourworldindata.org 🇯🇵📉

Deaths from stomach cancer have fallen in Japan by 70% since 1980.

US’s first registry of domestic abusers takes effect in Tennessee ‘Savanna’s law’ named after woman killed by ex-boyfriend, who had extensive record of domestic violence allegations

⏳The database can include information about offenders for up to 20 years after their last conviction, although it is not retroactive.

👨‍⚖️People will only be eligible for the database if they plead guilty to or are convicted of offenses after 1 January 2026.

⚖️ The first domestic violence offender registry in the US took effect earlier this month in Tennessee.

🪪The database will include the offender’s name, date of birth, and a photo and location of their convictions.

Global EV sales growth likely to slow after 20% jump in rocky 2025, research firm says Global EV registrations grew 20% last year but are likely to lose pace in 2026, data showed on Wednesday, as a slowdown in China and a relaxation of electrification targets worldwide led in December t...

🧐Is it all good news?

😞No, there is an expected slowdown in 2026 due to policy shifts, including President Trump's U-turn on electrification and a relaxation of emission standards in the European Union.

www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

🚗⚡️The Daily Dose via @reuters.com 🚗⚡️

20.7 million EVs were sold globally in 2025, which is a 20% increase from the year before.

😮Doctors at Northwestern University kept a man alive without his lungs for 48 hours by using a custom-engineered artificial device.

👏More than two years later, the patient has returned to daily life with excellent lung function.

news.nm.org/northwestern...

😎The future is bright.

🕛 The Doomsday Clock is a myth machine AI risks get inflated while helpful capabilities get dismissed

"Doom makes for compelling theater," writes TPN member @jamespethokoukis.bsky.social.

"But a civilization obsessed with fictional annihilation risks missing a consequential reality: Its problem-solving capacity is compounding faster than the threats stemming from its apocalyptic imagination."

🇨🇦Adaptation technologies are outpacing climate change for farmers in Canada, who are turning out record crop yields even during a multi-year drought.

theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/a-bovine-b...

🤠3 Things That Went Right This Week🤠

👏The world set a new record this month: longest span of time without a nuclear explosion since the atomic era began.

🇺🇸Last year likely saw the lowest homicide rate in the US since 1900.

'Result of institutional strength': India logs steep decline in TB, malaria and maternal deaths; Nadda hails people’s participation | India News - The Times of India India News: NEW DELHI: India has recorded steep declines in malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child deaths, signalling what the government calls a decisive, res.

🤔How did they do it?

💰By strengthening primary healthcare.

🧐Is it all good news?

🫤No, the malaria assessment found transmission persisting in forested and hard-to-reach areas.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/result...

🇮🇳📉The Daily Dose via @timesofindianews.bsky.social 📉🇮🇳

Since 2015, malaria deaths in India have plummeted by 78%.

🤔How do you reverse a teenage pregnancy epidemic?

🇧🇷Brazil invested in sex education and healthcare.

A chart showing the estimated annual number of deaths from HIV/AIDS and the estimated number of deaths averted by antiretroviral therapy (ART), from 1990 to 2024. ART is estimated to save over a million lives each year. The data source is the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2026). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

📊 Explore updated data on HIV/AIDS—

When HIV was first identified four decades ago, nearly 100% of those infected died, typically within a few years.

Thankfully, global public health efforts and medical advances such as antiretroviral therapy (ART) have improved this situation dramatically.

Look in the Mirror With the dramatic and painful events in Minneapolis this past week culminating in the killing of another lawfully protesting American citizen, it’s become increasingly common for those outraged at the...

It’s tempting to describe today’s abuses of power as unprecedented or as imported from somewhere else.

History tells us otherwise.

TPN founder Zachary Karabell argues that reckoning with what is happening now requires confronting what has always been here.

🐮This week we are dedicating the What Could Go Right? newsletter to Veronika, an Austrian cow that is upending what we know about bovine intelligence.

theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/a-bovine-b...

European Electricity Review 2026 | Ember The EU’s electricity transition reached a new milestone in 2025 with wind and solar generating more power than fossil fuels.

🤔How much did they generate?

📈30% up from 20% five years ago.

🧐How many EU countries grew their solar capacity in 2025?

🥳All of them!
ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

🇪🇺☀️The Daily Dose via @ember-energy.org ☀️🇪🇺

For the first time, wind and solar have generated more electricity than fossil fuels in the EU in 2025.

⏰Now that's an alarm system!

Can AI Help Us Find God? In the coming era, believers may turn to charismatic religious leaders—or to oracular machines, write Tyler Cowen.

"The printing press changed what Christianity meant, ultimately cleaving it into multiple branches as Martin Luther’s writings and the vernacular bibles were broadly disseminated," writes TPN member Tyler Cowen.

"AI is likely to do the same with our current set of religions."

⚡️For the first time ever, EV sales overtook standard petrol car sales in Europe in December 2025, according to new figures released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-evs...

Historic milestone: Middle class Mexicans now outnumber those in poverty The Mexican government on Friday claimed that for the first time in history more  Mexicans are categorized as middle class than poor.

🤔How many people moved up?

😮According to the World Bank, approximately 12 million Mexicans rose to middle class status between 2018 and 2024.

🧐What does the World Bank consider middle class?

💵The World Bank considers people with daily incomes above US $17 (around 340 pesos) to be middle class.

🇲🇽📈The Daily Dose via Mexico News Daily 🇲🇽📈

In 2024, more Mexicans were categorized as middle class than as living in poverty for the first time in history.

Europe to Ramp Up Offshore Wind in Push for Energy Independence A group of European leaders pledged Monday to build 100 gigawatts of offshore wind, enough to power more than 50 million households. As Europe faces a hostile Russia and an increasingly bellicose U.S., experts see deepening risks in its reliance on imported fossil fuels.

European leaders pledged Monday to build 100 gigawatts of offshore wind, enough to power more than 50 million households.

As Europe faces a hostile Russia and an increasingly bellicose U.S., experts see deepening risks in its reliance on imported fossil fuels.

Not a single rhino in Assam poached in 2025, says Himanta Biswa Sarma Between 2000 and 2021, at least 191 rhinos were poached in Assam. The worst years were 2013 and 2014, when 27 rhinos were killed each year| India News

Read all about it: www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/n...