💡 Warp News #304
🤰 New obesity drug delivers highest weight loss yet. 🛰️ Startup successfully transmits solar energy with laser. 🔋 Battery storage has become cheap enough for solar power to be delivered around the clock.
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Free newsletter with fact-based optimistic news about technology, science, and human progress with the angry optimist, Mathias Sundin. If you are not a subscriber, become one here.
🙌 A Christmas thank you
From me to you: A truly big thank you for the year that has passed. Thank you for being part of a community that helps spread some of the optimism about what is actually happening in the world.
My year has revolved around a book, which came to be called The Fifth Acceleration, and you’ve all been along for the ride the whole time – whether you wanted to or not.
The latest figures are a couple of weeks old, but after one month the book had sold around 2,500 copies. A good start, in other words, but still a lot of work left before it can be called a bestseller. (It’s available to buy or listen to everywhere books are sold or audiobooks are streamed.)
Next year I’ll also start looking abroad, to see if it can be published in more countries.
A big thank you to everyone who has bought and read it!
A world being reshaped
Outside my book bubble, we see a world that is being reshaped. Technology, such as AI, is one factor, but right now an even bigger one is geopolitics. A lot of that is bad.
At the same time, the world hasn’t stopped making progress. For me, who every week sits down to write fact-based, optimistic news, the contrast is striking. It helps me keep my balance in a world that is shaking.
🎅 Christmas pace
Warp News and this newsletter are now shifting into a Christmas and New Year pace. News will be published every other day, and the newsletter will be sent every other week until a little way into January.
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🔋 Battery storage has become cheap enough for solar power to be delivered around the clock
The cost of large-scale battery storage fell by 40 percent in 2024 and continues to drop in 2025. Over the past decade, battery costs have fallen by an average of 20 percent per year while deployment has increased by 80 percent per year.
🐟 São Paulo's river was an open sewer – after major cleanup life returns to the water
The Novo Rio Pinheiros program has installed 280 kilometers of sewage networks and given more than 7,000 households access to basic sanitation. Two million residents have stopped dumping sewage into the Pinheiros River, and 173,000 residents along the Zavuvus stream now have clean water.
💉 DR Congo launches vaccination campaign for 62 million children
DR Congo is launching a nationwide vaccination campaign against measles and rubella that will reach 62 million children aged 6 months to 14 years. The combined vaccine replaces the previous measles vaccine in the national immunization program.
🚛 Self-driving trucks to transport sand around the clock in Texas
Detmar Logistics has signed an agreement with Aurora Innovation to use autonomous trucks to transport frac sand in the Permian Basin. The trucks can operate over 20 hours per day and double the capacity to move sand. The technology allows the vehicles to see 400 meters ahead in total darkness.
🛰️ Startup successfully transmits solar energy with laser from aircraft – a step toward space-based solar power
Overview Energy has tested transmitting thousands of watts from an aircraft to a ground-based receiver using near-infrared laser light. The technology makes it possible to deliver solar energy to existing ground-based solar facilities when the sun is not shining.
🤰 New obesity drug delivers highest weight loss yet in clinical trial
Patients on the highest dose lost an average of 23.7 percent of their body weight after 68 weeks. The drug also reduced knee arthritis pain by up to 62.6 percent. More than one in eight patients who took the drug became completely free of knee pain by the end of the trial.
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