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  California is weaning itself off fossil gas, fast. Gas-fired electricity generation in California fell by 26% in the first half of 2026, as utility-scale solar, batteries and the new SunZia wind project feed power in via a dedicated transmission line. On its hottest day this year, 26 August 2026, renewables outproduced fossil gas for most of the peak. Inside Climate News https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10092026/inside-clean-energy-california-transitions-away-from-natural-gas/ #ShareGoodNewsTo...

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  Episode 3 of Beforecast is up! More Machiavelli! More Renaissance weirdness! https://Beforecast.fm has links to all the podcast sites, and the YouTube and RSS feed links are below.

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  The world’s first giant anteater reintroduction appears to be succeeding: more than 200 giant anteaters now live free in Argentina’s Iberá wetlands. By the mid-20th century, giant anteaters, locally called yurumí, had disappeared from the region, due to poaching, fires and habitat destruction: the reintroduced anteaters from the 2000s are now self-sustaining and have started attracting wildlife tourists. Noticias https://noticiasambientales.com/animals/corrientes-celebrates-19-years-of-the-giant...

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  The first new tuberculosis vaccine in a century is heading for mass production. India’s Serum Institute will manufacture M72/AS01E under an agreement with the Gates Medical Research Institute, investing more than $100 million ahead of approval. TB still kills 1.23 million people a year. WHO estimates a vaccine with this efficacy profile could prevent 76 million cases and save 8.5 million lives over 25 years. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/indias-serum-institu...

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  Uganda has started the countdown to the end of its Ebola outbreak. The last confirmed patient tested negative twice and was discharged on 16 July, starting the 42-day clock. The outbreak, declared on 15 May, infected 20 people and killed two, with all 836 contacts traced. The catch: transmission continues in neighbouring DRC, and a single imported case would reset the clock to zero. WHO Africa https://www.afro.who.int/countries/uganda/news/uganda-begins-countdown-end-ebola-outbreak #ShareGoodNew...

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  Mexico is putting $1.15 billion into cleaning up three of its most polluted rivers: the Atoyac, the Tula and the Lerma-Santiago. Alongside treatment plants and sewer collectors, the programme has identified 479 illegal dumps, reforested thousands of hectares and regulated hundreds of industrial discharge points. First-phase works are 85% and 90% complete. Mexico Business News https://mexicobusiness.news/infrastructure/news/mexico-commits-mx20-billion-restore-three-major-rivers #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Easter Island’s people take command of their sea. The Rapa Nui community has locked in funding, patrols and research for the 700,000 km² Te Moana Tapu a Hotu Matu’a reserve, one of the largest marine protected areas anywhere run by an Indigenous-majority board. Partnerships with Island Conservation and the Blue Nature Alliance, plus Packard Foundation money, will turn paper protection into enforcement. Oceanographic https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/indigenous-led-mpa-secures-critical-inter...

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  Bolivia just celebrated its first same-sex civil marriage. Fabiana Banzer and Scarlett Rocha wed in Santa Cruz after nearly four years of legal battles, opening the door for other couples still waiting for their families to be recognised. DW https://www.dw.com/es/primer-matrimonio-civil-homosexual-en-bolivia/a-78298017 #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Porto has made public transport free for all residents. Since 10 July, anyone living in Portugal’s second largest city can ride the metro, buses, trams and ferries across the metropolitan area at no charge, in a bid to coax people out of their cars. EU Today https://eutoday.net/porto-introduces-free-public-transport/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Sea life is moving into offshore wind farms. A Dutch technician filmed a seal hunting inside a turbine tower; scientists now find oysters, lobsters, sharks and porpoises colonising the rock piles that anchor them, the “coral reefs of the north”. Off southern England, 75,000 textured reef cubes were sunk at one farm, and bottom-trawling around UK sites has fallen 77%. Atmos https://atmos.earth/science-and-nature/the-sea-life-making-a-home-in-offshore-wind-farms/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Malaysia is giving book vouchers to 2.2 million students, and it’s paying dividends. Every student from secondary school to teacher-training college now gets a $21 voucher to spend at more than 1,200 booksellers. The scheme hit a 100% redemption rate in its first year, and 97% of recipients said it helped, especially poorer families. The Star https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2026/06/30/book-vouchers-for-22-million-students-redemption-starts-tomorrow #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Your paper towel may soon grow in the desert. Kimberly-Clark, one of the world’s biggest tissue makers, says it has made a “Goldilocks discovery”: hesperaloe, a spiky arid-climate plant that yields fibre stronger and softer than wood, with a fraction of the water and no felled trees. After spending $250 million over 20 years on testing 70 candidates, the firm is now building a pilot crop facility in Arizona. WSJ https://www.wsj.com/business/the-paper-in-your-paper-towel-is-a-candidate-for-a-radi...

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  A tetanus-diphtheria vaccine that doesn’t need a fridge has passed its first human trial. UK scientists reformulated a licensed shot using trehalose, the sugar that lets desert plants survive without water, keeping it stable for up to two years at 30°C. In a trial involving 60 adults it matched two approved vaccines on safety and immunity. Gavi https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/fridge-free-vaccine-passes-first-human-trial-raising-hopes-hardest-reach #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Meet Rachel Ikemeh, the woman who almost single-handedly saved a species of primate. The Niger Delta red colobus was unknown to science until 1993 and lost 90% of its population within two decades, falling to an estimated 200 animals. Ikemeh’s community-led project, launched in 2013, now protects more than 80 km² and 16 threatened species, and its resident colobus population has doubled. This year she opened Nigeria’s first locally managed marine area. https://edition.cnn.com/world/africa/conser...

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  The world’s population of Asiatic lions has grown from 523 in 2015 to 891 in 2025, a 70% jump, with their range expanding from 30,000 km² to 35,000 km². More than 55,000 open wells have been fenced off to stop lions falling in. Wild prey now makes up 74% of their diet, up from just 26% in 1974. Business Standard https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/asiatic-lion-population-rises-70-percent-decade-891-world-lion-day-126081000837_1.html #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Surgeons in Turin restored a woman’s sight by moving tissue from one eye to the other. Elena, 67, lost her sight in a car crash 5 years ago — her left eye’s optic nerve was destroyed but its tissues were intact, her right eye was the opposite. Michele Reibaldi’s team performed what they say is the 1st transplant of the macula (central retina), & Elena is gradually recovering her vision Her guide dog Joe was allowed to stay in the ward with her throughout https://www.lastampa.it/torino/2026/0...

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  New Mexico flipped from fossil fuels to renewables in five years. In July 2021 its largest utility drew 83% of its power from coal and gas; this July, renewables supplied 62%. Solar carries the scorching days, batteries release stored sun through the evening, and wind picks up after dark. The cost of electricity has stayed below the US average the whole time. Yale Climate Connections https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/07/new-mexicos-clean-energy-success-story/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Reminder that Hugo voting closes at noon Pacific time today. Please if you can make sure to vote for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. As a past winner I know what a huge difference it makes.

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  Water is returning to the African Sahel. After the catastrophic droughts of the late 20th century, aquifers from Senegal to Ethiopia are refilling, water tables in Niger have risen four metres, and Lake Chad has swollen to ten times its mid-1980s size. Near-extinct scimitar-horned oryx now number over 600, and farmers have nurtured 200 million trees back onto once-bare fields. Yale E360 https://e360.yale.edu/features/sahel-groundwater-climate-monsoon #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Heat pumps are winning Americans over. In the first quarter they outsold fossil-fuel furnaces by 32%, the fourth year running that manufacturers have shipped more heat pumps than furnaces. Nearly half of new US homes built in 2024 came with one. Grist https://grist.org/energy/the-us-may-be-hitting-a-tipping-point-for-heat-pumps/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  The United States just approved its first new sunscreen ingredient since 1999. Europe has used it since 1999. Bemotrizinol blocks both UVA and UVB rays, breaks down more slowly than existing chemical sunscreens, and is absorbed less into the bloodstream than those same sunscreens. NPR https://www.npr.org/2026/06/13/nx-s1-5856385/sunscreen-skin-protection-bemotrizinol #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  The largest digital camera ever built has started filming a 10 year movie of the universe. From a mountaintop in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s 3,200-megapixel camera is now photographing the entire southern sky every few nights, producing roughly ten terabytes of data per night. The goal is an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse of the cosmos: pulsating stars, supernova explosions, asteroid orbits, & clues to dark energy and dark matter https://rubinobservatory.org/explore/...

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  London let its roadsides run wild, and butterflies are starting to return London’s transportation authority has doubled its wildflower verges in two years to 520,000 m², about 100 Trafalgar Squares, and butterfly sightings are up more than 50%. https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2026/june/transport-for-london-s-wildflower-verges-continue-to-blossom #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Australia’s numbat is off the endangered list. The striped, termite-eating marsupial has been downlisted by the IUCN to near-threatened, capping a 40-year recovery. Sustained fox and cat control lifted numbers from about 300 in the late 1970s to around 3,000 today. Mongabay https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/07/once-endangered-australias-numbat-is-making-a-hopeful-recovery/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  A Chilean salmon farm now draws about 57% of its power from panels laid over the water, cutting roughly 136,000 litres of diesel a year and silencing the generators. With the noise gone, thousands of salmon have gathered in the shade beneath the arrays. Ecoportal https://www.ecoportal.net/en/island-chile-floating-solar-panels/28686/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  Three years after Raja Ampat’s walking shark won full legal protection, researchers off Sawinggrai village counted 2,462 per square kilometre, the densest population ever recorded for the genus. These reef-crawlers barely move, which makes them easy to wipe out but quick to recover where habitat holds and local villagers wade out to count them. Oceanographic https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/new-walking-shark-discovered-as-protected-indonesian-population-booms/ #ShareGoodNewsToo

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  A global trial has identified a better antibiotic for deadly staph infections. Published in NEJM, the trial, now involving over 6,000 people across 150 hospitals, found that cefazolin and, in some cases, penicillin, worked at least as well as flucloxacillin, the current standard treatment, but saw fewer deaths within 90 days and fewer cases of acute kidney injury. This is huge: staph infections kill up to 1 in 4 patients within three months. UCL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2026/jun/global-trial-s...

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  Adding fish to rice paddies fights a horrible parasitic disease. In a schistosomiasis hotspot in Senegal, researchers stocked rice fields with two native species, African bonytongue and Nile tilapia, that eat or outcompete the freshwater snails carrying the parasite. Fields with both fish held fewer snails, and yields rose more than 25%, with the harvested fish offering a second stream of income. Stanford https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/06/rice-fish-farming-tropical-disease-schistosomiasi...

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  A Roman scroll that should be ash has just been read without being opened. In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius buried the Roman town of Herculaneum under metres of ash. In one villa, a library of papyrus scrolls was buried too. The scrolls didn’t burn, but were charred: turned into fragile, cigar-shaped lumps of carbon. For 2,000 years they’ve been unreadable. Researchers with a project called the Vesuvius Challenge have read an entire scroll without opening it. https://scrollprize.org/firstscroll #ShareGo...

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  The International Labour Organisation has adopted the first binding global labour standards for gig workers. Backed by 406 members, the new convention sets protections for platform workers in ride-hailing, food delivery and other app-based jobs, including measures on occupational safety, minimum pay and protection from unjustified termination. The standards will need ratification by individual countries before enforcement can begin. Reuters https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/un-labou...