The global homicide rate fell by 46% worldwide between 1990 and 2015
Between 1990 and 2015, the number of homicides per 100,000 people fell by 46%, with countries in Oceania experiencing a 22% drop over the same period, and 36% in Asia.
Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)
This archive spans the years 2017 through 2025, a period marked by rapid advances in clean energy, medicine, technology, and social equity. It collects documented breakthroughs, policy wins, and scientific achievements from the present era. If you want evidence that progress is real and ongoing, this is where to look.
New LED lamp has helped 90% of its dyslexic users to read ‘effortlessly’
The Lexilife team tested the light’s efficiency on 300 people with dyslexia—and 90% of participants said that they could “effortlessly read a text illuminated by the lamp.”
27,000 deaths avoided in the United States by shutting down coal plants
Researchers from the University of California – San Diego found that tens of thousands of deaths had been avoided between 2005 and 2016 by replacing coal plants.
U.S. cancer death rate sees largest-ever single-year drop
Cancer death rates in the U.S. have now fallen for 26 consecutive years, and the pace is quickening. The biggest force behind the trend is lung cancer, which kills more Americans each year than breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers combined — making its accelerating decline ripple across the entire cancer landscape. Decades of smoking-cessation policy, expanding screening, and faster treatment advances are all compounding at once. Yet fewer than 5% of eligible patients receive recommended lung cancer screenings, and Black patients face a 33% higher mortality risk than white patients. Progress is real — and unfinished.
Mexico City bans plastic bags
The new law went into effect January 1. By 2021, the same law will ban handing out plastic straws, spoons, coffee capsules and other single-use items.
California offers up to $9,500 to purchase electric vehicle
The incentives are up to $9,500 towards the purchase of a new or used plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, fully battery electric vehicle, or fuel cell electric vehicle and will be prioritized for low-income families.
Scientists develop ultra-high capacity lithium-sulphur battery
Scientists at Monash University in Australia have developed a battery with a capacity five times higher than that of lithium-ion batteries that could lead to drastically cheaper electric cars and grid energy storage.
China bans fishing in depleted Yangtze River for 10 years to protect aquatic life
The ban will be applied at 332 conservation sites along the river. It will be extended to cover the main river course and key tributaries by January 1 next year.
Every county in Pennsylvania will have new voting machines with paper trails in 2020
“The shift from paperless [electronic] machines to having individual paper ballots is a sea change,” said the policy director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. “It’s great, it’s huge, it was necessary.”
U.S. FDA approves pancreatic cancer treatment shown to double patient lifespans
The drug Lynparza was developed by AstraZeneca and Merck as a maintenance treatment for patients with a specific gene mutation whose cancer spread beyond the pancreas.