PROGRESS
CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE: 1. POTHOLES: 0.
PROGRESS
New York filled its 200,000th pothole. Yes, that counts.
Two hundred thousand holes became not-holes.
SOURCENYC Department of Transportation
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MOST COUNTED AS PROGRESS
These are the stories readers most often counted as progress.
1453 COUNTS ALL TIME
1463 COUNTS ALL TIME
ANIMALS
NAMED BY LOCALS FIRST.
ANIMALS
Science just added a new cat to the family tree.
Locals already had a name for it. Genomics gave science one.
SOURCECurrent Biology
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1473 COUNTS ALL TIME
NATURE
DONE BY HAND.
NATURE
The diggers couldn't get there. So they fixed the bog by hand.
Ten days, wooden dams, no machinery. Pools are already forming.
SOURCENatureScot
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1483 COUNTS ALL TIME
NATURE
DAMS OUT. SALMON IN.
NATURE
The dams came down. More than 20,000 salmon came back.
Four dams gone. 21,052 adult Chinook counted upstream across two seasons. Eighty-eight percent of their documented historic range reoccupied — early, and encouraging.
SOURCEScientific Reports
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1493 COUNTS ALL TIME
ANIMALS
A BRIDGE JUST FOR DEER.
ANIMALS
The deer have infrastructure now.
Washington’s I-90 Snoqualmie Pass wildlife overcrossing recorded its 10,000th successful animal crossing in July. Add 11 undercrossings and the project is nearing 40,000 recorded crossings since 2014. Apparently the elk were just waiting for civil engineering.
SOURCEWashington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) via Good Good Good
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1503 COUNTS ALL TIME
HUMANS
SPIN CYCLE, STORY TIME.
HUMANS
The laundromat has a library now.
Laundromats are becoming tiny literacy hubs, with children’s books and family reading spaces turning wash-cycle downtime into reading time. Apparently the spin cycle comes with a library card now.
SOURCELaundryCares Foundation / Reasons to Be Cheerful
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1512 COUNTS ALL TIME
PROGRESS
South Korea's renewable-energy capacity surpassed coal for the first time.
Renewables reached 41,040 MW on October 21—283 MW more than coal.
SOURCEKorea Power Exchange
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1522 COUNTS ALL TIME
ANIMALS
Ten more scarlet macaws are flying free near La Ceiba, Honduras.
The October 26 release brought the local 2026 total to 26 in a landscape where wild macaws had been absent for decades.
SOURCELa Prensa
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1532 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
Malawi now reports its September measles-rubella campaign reached more than 5.8 million children.
The final WHO update says the nationwide drive met its target, including remote island and river communities.
SOURCEWorld Health Organization
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1542 COUNTS ALL TIME
PROGRESS
Wind and solar saved the UK £5.9 billion in gas imports.
The clean-power buildout turned into an energy-security shield when global gas prices spiked.
SOURCECarbon Brief
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1552 COUNTS ALL TIME
NATURE
After a 99.5% crash, the Bogong moths are swarming again.
The sky is filling with a migration Australia feared it had lost.
SOURCEABC News
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1562 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
A daily pill cut an average liter of volume from swollen legs.
A small trial suggests the first medication for lymphedema may be getting closer.
SOURCEStanford Medicine
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1572 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
They lined the surgery cavity with radioactive tiles. Surgical-site recurrence fell to 1.3%.
A Phase 3 trial turned the walls of a surgical cavity into the radiation treatment.
SOURCEUT MD Anderson Cancer Center / Journal of Clinical Oncology
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1582 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
After brain-metastasis surgery, three to five radiation sessions beat one.
A small scheduling change produced a surprisingly large clinical difference.
SOURCEAmerican Society for Radiation Oncology
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1592 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
A urine-and-swab test ruled out womb cancer 98.8% of the time.
A painless test using urine and a vaginal swab showed it could accurately rule out womb cancer for most women with postmenopausal bleeding.
SOURCEUniversity of Manchester
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1602 COUNTS ALL TIME
NATURE
New York City planted 18,261 trees. It started with the hottest blocks.
New York City planted its most trees in a decade and prioritized neighborhoods where extreme heat hits hardest.
SOURCENew York City Mayor’s Office
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1612 COUNTS ALL TIME
PROGRESS
The last of 65 offshore turbines just clicked into place.
The final turbine is installed at Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt offshore project built to serve Rhode Island and Connecticut.
SOURCEConnecticut Governor’s Office / Revolution Wind
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1622 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
A vitamin-derived molecule reached its target in mitochondrial disease patients.
A Cambridge-led study gave nicotinamide riboside to eight people with mitochondrial DNA disease. It was well tolerated and showed early signs of working.
SOURCEGenome Medicine / University of Cambridge
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1632 COUNTS ALL TIME
PROGRESS
Germany wrote down how it will quit fossil fuels. Deadline: 2045.
Europe's largest economy published a sector-by-sector plan to leave coal, oil and gas behind, only the third country to do so.
SOURCEGerman Federal Environment Ministry / DW
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1642 COUNTS ALL TIME
NATURE
THE MEADOW GREW BACK.
NATURE
They stopped dragging chains. The seagrass erased 94% of the scars.
Ten traditional chain moorings were replaced with eco-moorings that move with the tide instead of scraping circles through the seabed. Five years later, the damaged patches had shrunk by an average 93.6%.
SOURCENational Trust / Studland Bay Marine Partnership
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1652 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
An experimental drug gave mice with MS-like disease their movement back.
In a mouse model of multiple sclerosis, the experimental drug K-9 restored function after paralysis and vision loss had already set in. It has not been tested in people with MS.
SOURCENational Institutes of Health / UVA Health
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1662 COUNTS ALL TIME
PROGRESS
Nairobi revived two old libraries. Patronage jumped 240%.
Book Bunk and Nairobi City County restored Eastlands and Kaloleni public libraries as free civic hubs. Book Bunk reports patronage up more than 240%.
SOURCEBook Bunk Trust / Reasons to Be Cheerful
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1672 COUNTS ALL TIME
SCIENCE
Chagas treatment just got cut from 60 days to 30.
In the TESEO trial, 450 adults received different benznidazole regimens. The 30-day, once-daily option matched the standard 60-day course in the trial and caused fewer side effects.
SOURCEUTEP
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1682 COUNTS ALL TIME
ANIMALS
SHE PICKED CALIFORNIA.
ANIMALS
A sea turtle just nested on the West Coast for the first time on record.
Lifeguards were called to an injured turtle near Seal Beach on 16 September. She was not injured. She was digging a nest — and three days later it happened again near the Huntington Beach Pier. NOAA Fisheries says it is the first recorded natural nesting of any sea turtle species on the U.S. West Coast. Both nests are now fenced, signed and monitored.
SOURCELos Angeles Times / NOAA Fisheries
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