🪱 Hookworm vaccine reduces infection in trial – could help millions with anemia
Hookworm infects more than 100 million people and is a major cause of iron-deficiency anemia, particularly in children and pregnant women. A phase 2 trial shows that a vaccine candidate substantially reduces the intensity of infection.
📉 Overdose deaths in the US have dropped 35 percent from the 2023 peak
The number of overdose deaths in the US is estimated to have fallen by 35 percent from the peak year of 2023 to 2025. The purity of seized fentanyl powder was cut in half between August 2023 and the end of 2024. A coordinated counter-narcotics strategy has choked off the supply of fentanyl.
🤰 Maternal mortality declining – new data and methods show measurable results
Globally, maternal mortality has decreased by 40 percent since 2000, according to estimates from the UN Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group. A sepsis prevention program at 59 hospitals in Malawi and Uganda reduced infection-related maternal mortality by 32 percent.
🦾 Startups that learned to use AI correctly generated 1.9 times higher revenue
Startups that learned how other companies had reorganized their operations around AI found 44 percent more use cases for the technology. The startups that received this information had 1.9 times higher revenue and were 18 percent more likely to acquire paying customers.
💡 Warp News #319
🏫 327 million more children – a 30 percent increase – are in school today compared to 2000. ☀️ Solar cells reach 130 percent energy conversion – more energy out than in. 🌔 Artemis 2 astronauts flew past the moon — set new distance record.
🧠 You don't just inherit general intelligence – ability in math and language is also more than half determined by genes
There has long been strong evidence that general intelligence is heritable. Now a large meta-analysis shows the same applies to abilities like math and language. The findings open up the possibility of using genetic profiles to tailor education to each child's cognitive strengths and weaknesses.
🤷 How can baseless claims about AI spread so widely?
Despite being incorrect or greatly exaggerated, claims about AI are spreading far and wide, both in the news media and among individuals. Is it a conspiracy? No, something even more powerful.
🏗️ More than 80 percent of China's steel production upgraded to ultra-low emissions
Emissions have already fallen by 34 million tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to permanently shutting down eight coal-fired power plants. The steel industry accounts for 7 percent of global emissions, and China produces more than half of the world's steel.
☀️ New method could make solar cells more efficient
Researchers demonstrated a method that produced more energy carriers than absorbed photons, reaching about 130% in this specific measure.The method is based on a process called singlet fission, where a single photon can produce two energy carriers instead of one.
🧮 AI solves math problem that researchers failed to crack for six years
An AI system has for the first time solved a problem from FrontierMath, a benchmark consisting of real research problems that mathematicians have failed to solve. Multiple AI models have now demonstrated the ability to solve the problem, including GPT-5.4 Pro, Gemini 3.1 Pro, and Claude Opus 4.6.
🏫 327 million more children – a 30 percent increase – are in school today compared to 2000
Since 2000, the world has seen one of the most extensive expansions of education in history. Enrollment in preschools has risen by 45 percent, and in higher education by 161 percent over the same period.
🌔 Artemis 2 astronauts flew past the moon — set new distance record
The Artemis 2 crew traveled farther from Earth than any humans before — 406,778 kilometers (252,760 miles). It is the first time in over 50 years that humans have visited the moon, and the first time in history with a woman, a non-American and a Black person on board.
💡 Warp News #318
🌲 Europe's forests are growing. 😺 The number of cats euthanized in American shelters has decreased by 75 percent in ten years. 📑 AI scientist produces increasingly better papers – and an AI system can review them as well as humans.
📑 AI scientist produces increasingly better papers – and an AI system can review them as well as humans
The quality of scientific papers written by the AI system The AI Scientist increases predictably as the underlying AI models improve. An automated reviewer built by the same research group matches human reviewers' accuracy when evaluating scientific papers.
🤦 Here we go again: A new, very shaky claim about AI and heat is spreading fast
A non-peer-reviewed study with extreme claims about data centers and temperature increases is now spreading across both news and social media. Time to bring out the vaccine!
📚 Top Reads
We're honored to present these top reads from world-class writers, who contribute to Warp News because they believe in our mission of spreading fact-based optimism all over the world.
🆙 Warp Levels - an idea to level up humanity
Humanity is doing the high jump without a bar. We have no goal. With Warp Levels, we determine what the next level for humanity should contain, so we can level up and make progress faster.
📚 Kevin Kelly: Focus on the biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems
We talk about some of the 450 advice in his new book, but also about his new project: Protopia - the hundred-year desirable future. And Kevin Kelly give advice for how Warp News should grow faster: "Wrap it around people and their dreams."
💡 A new mindset for humanity can impact billions of people now and in the future
If we succeed in giving humanity more optimism about the future, it will not only affect those living now but also all generations and billions of people who will live in the future.
💰 Wall Street legend: “Pessimists sound smart – optimists make money”
Jim O'Shaughnessy is a legendary investor on Wall Street. He shares what he thinks is the biggest opportunity for the future and explains how the world is going through a great reshuffle.
🔋 Northvolt and the benefit of understanding the future
The story of Peter Carlsson and Northvolt teaches us two lessons: You need to understand the future to see all the possibilities, and you must be a fact-based optimist to grab them.
💡 David Deutsch: Optimism, Pessimism and Cynicism
With so much progress in the world, how can pessimism still be widespread? It is because of cynicism, denying that “so-called-progress” is progress, argues David Deutsch, professor at Oxford University and one of the world's leading intellectuals on optimism.
