Milestones from Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)

Infant feet, for article on nirsevimab RSV infant hospitalizations

Spanish study links RSV antibody to 86% drop in infant hospitalizations

By Peter Schulte / May 14, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Nirsevimab, a long-acting antibody given to every infant in one Spanish region, cut RSV hospitalizations by 86% compared to previous seasons, according to a new study out of Valladolid University. Babies under six months — the group hit hardest by RSV every winter — saw the biggest drop, with pediatric intensive care admissions falling sharply too. Unlike a traditional vaccine, the shot delivers ready-made antibodies directly, which matters for newborns whose immune systems are still developing. Several European countries and the U.S. have already added it to routine infant care, and early data abroad echo the Spanish results. The remaining challenge is making sure families in lower-income countries, where RSV hits hardest, aren’t left waiting.

University of Chicago campus, for article on University of Chicago free tuition

University of Chicago expands free tuition to families earning under $250k

By Peter Schulte / May 14, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Free tuition at the University of Chicago will soon reach families earning up to $250,000 a year — a ceiling roughly two to three times higher than most peer programs. Starting in autumn 2027, qualifying students pay nothing toward tuition, and those from households under $125,000 also get room, board, and fees covered. The move directly addresses the middle-income squeeze, where families often earn too much for traditional aid but too little to absorb a tuition bill north of $65,000 without serious debt. UChicago says it will also simplify the aid process itself, which trips up many families. As elite universities face growing pressure on access, commitments like this one reshape what affordability can look like at the top of American higher education.

Shanghai skyline at dawn, for article on Shanghai industrial recycling rate

Shanghai now recycles 98% of industrial waste after 6-year sorting overhaul

By Peter Schulte / May 14, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Shanghai’s waste overhaul has pushed industrial recycling to 98%, meaning almost nothing from the city’s factories ends up in a landfill anymore. Six years in, companies have built whole businesses around the idea that scrap is just raw material in disguise — one Jinshan firm now processes 130,000 tons of aluminum cuttings a year, while another turns used cooking oil into bioplastic for take-out containers sold worldwide. At the neighborhood level, a Hongkou pilot composts 220 pounds of kitchen scraps daily into fertilizer for the gardens right outside residents’ doors. For a city of 25 million, it’s a hopeful glimpse of what circular living can look like when waste is treated as treasure rather than trash.

Mongolian wild asses, for article on khulan wild ass

Hundreds of Asiatic wild asses return to eastern Mongolia after 65 years

By Peter Schulte / May 13, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Asiatic wild asses, known as khulan, are roaming eastern Mongolia again after more than 60 years away, with hundreds now recorded crossing the Trans-Mongolian Railway into habitat they had vanished from. The turnaround began with a simple experiment: conservationists and government partners opened fence-free stretches of railway and watched to see what would happen. Animals crossed, trains kept running safely, and in May 2025 a monitored passage corridor was made official near the China-Mongolia border. Mongolia’s Gobi is home to roughly 91,000 khulan, the vast majority of the species worldwide, so reconnecting their range really matters. It’s a hopeful reminder that even the hard lines we’ve drawn across wild places can be redrawn.

Eye exam, for article on trachoma elimination

Australia becomes 30th country to eliminate trachoma as a public health concern

By Peter Schulte / May 13, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Trachoma has officially been eliminated as a public health concern in Australia, making it the 30th country to defeat the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. The win took nineteen years of patient work in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where the disease quietly persisted long after vanishing from cities. What made the difference wasn’t a miracle drug — it was Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organizations leading the response, paired with better housing, cleaner water, and treatment designed around local realities rather than imposed from outside. Health Minister Mark Butler said the lessons will shape how Australia tackles other preventable illnesses in remote regions. For the 125 million people still living in trachoma-endemic areas worldwide, Australia’s playbook offers something rare: proof that community-led care actually works.

Two sets of hand holding newborn baby, for article on Coartem Baby malaria treatment

W.H.O. approves world’s first malaria treatment for newborn babies

By Peter Schulte / May 13, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Newborn babies with malaria finally have a medicine made just for them. Coartem Baby, a cherry-flavored tablet that dissolves into breast milk or water, just earned World Health Organization prequalification — a green light that opens the door to public health systems across sub-Saharan Africa. For decades, doctors had to guess at doses using drugs built for older children, even as research showed infants were getting infected too. Ghana has already begun rolling it out, and Novartis has committed to what it calls “largely not-for-profit pricing” in malaria-endemic regions. Alongside new vaccines and better bed nets, it’s a quiet but meaningful sign that the fight against malaria — which still kills hundreds of thousands of children a year — is reaching the patients it had long overlooked.

Little Free Pantry, for article on little free pantry app

University of Washington researchers map little free pantries with new app

By Peter Schulte / May 12, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Little free pantries across Seattle quietly move an estimated 4 million pounds of food a year — more than the state’s largest food bank — and a new University of Washington app called PantryMap is helping that grassroots web run smarter. Users can check stock levels, post wish lists, and log donations in real time, while four pilot pantries now use privacy-preserving sensors that track weight and door activity without any cameras. Volunteers are already putting it to work, recently distributing 25,000 pounds of donated food to micropantries by bicycle. It’s a hopeful glimpse of how neighbor-to-neighbor sharing, paired with thoughtful technology, can tackle hunger and food waste together — one cupboard at a time.

Cement mixer, for article on Kenya seed sharing, for article on electric concrete mixer sales

Electric concrete mixers are booming in China, hitting 70% of new sales

By Peter Schulte / May 12, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Electric concrete mixers are quietly rewriting what “hard to electrify” really means — and in China, they’re on track to make up roughly 70% of new mixer sales in 2025, up from under 2% just four years earlier. The reason is refreshingly simple: these trucks return to the same batching plant every shift, so charging infrastructure can live right where the work begins and ends. In early 2026, Chinese buyers chose pure electric over hydrogen almost unanimously, signaling that batteries have won this corner of heavy transport. Trials are now spreading to the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, Norway, and Australia. The bigger lesson for climate progress: electrification advances fastest not by tackling the hardest routes first, but by recognizing where the work is already bounded enough to make the switch obvious.

Planting a plant in the dirt, for article on seed saving rights

Landmark Kenyan ruling overturns seed-sharing ban, defends farmers’ rights

By Peter Schulte / May 12, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

Kenya’s High Court has thrown out a law that could have sent farmers to prison for up to two years simply for saving or sharing seeds from their own harvests. The court ruled that criminalizing a practice Kenyan smallholders have relied on for centuries violated their rights to life, livelihood, and food. UN human rights experts welcomed the December 2025 decision and credited the farmers, Indigenous communities, and civil society groups who spent years building the case. They’re now urging courts in other countries to follow suit, since similar restrictive seed laws have spread across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It’s a powerful reminder that food sovereignty — and the crop diversity our climate-stressed future depends on — often begins with the people quietly tending the land.

Holding a nasal spray, for article on prehospital stroke nasal spray

Hong Kong researchers develop world-first nasal spray for stroke, cutting damage 80%

By Peter Schulte / May 11, 2026 / Good News For Humankind

A nasal spray for stroke, developed at the University of Hong Kong, cut brain damage by more than 80% when given within 30 minutes of an ischemic stroke in preclinical studies. The idea is beautifully simple: tiny particles travel from the nose directly along nerve pathways to the brain, sidestepping the blood-brain barrier that derails most neurological drugs. Designed to be as easy to use as an EpiPen, it could let a bystander start protecting brain cells before the ambulance even arrives. Clinical trials are still years away, but if it holds up, this kind of “protection-first” thinking could reshape emergency care for stroke patients everywhere — especially the 85% who currently never reach treatment in time.