Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Reasons for Optimism VIII
1. The number of people imprisoned in the US has been falling since 2008.
2. More cars were sold in 2012 than any other year since the recession began, and sales grew 13% over 2011, more than in any year since 1984.
3. Audi is showing off technology that would allow a car to autonomously find a parking spot within a parking garage and park itself. No word yet on when this will be available for consumers, but a garage-only feature like this might circumvent some of the legal grey areas with autonomous cars, at least in privately-owned garages.
4. The Earth is getting greener. And I don't mean humans are becoming more environmentally-conscious; I mean the physical Earth is literally greener, as measured by satellites, because there's more plants. There are two reasons plants are growing more: higher temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels. This is a another piece of evidence that climate tends to have stable equilibria.
5. Fully 64 new supplies of energy have been discovered in Africa in the past five years, and the pace seems to be picking up (ht). When combined with the previously-featured GravityLight, Africa is on track to save millions of lives in the coming years.
6. The incredible exponential growth of US oil production continues. We are now producing seven million barrels per day for the first time since March 1993.
7. More than two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about their own economic situation in 2013. On the other hand, nearly two-thirds are pessimistic about the economy as a whole. If you believe in Hayek's local knowledge, this is a great reason to feel optimistic about the economy as a whole (though perhaps pessimistic about the media's portrayal of it).
8. Herbert E. Meyer, who is called "the official who predicted communism's demise," says the good news that nobody is noticing is the global rise of the middle class (ht). In a recent interview [mp3] with Jerry Bowyer, Meyer says, "When you stand back from all the yelling and the screaming…you can see what I believe is the most important trend in the word…the world is emerging from poverty fast. ... Each year between fifty and one hundred million human beings are leaving poverty behind. ... By the way, it’s going to be a five billion-person middle class. This will become the most powerful force in the world. Their demand for our goods and services will set off an economic boom…I believe that we’re heading for not just a sonic boom, but maybe a supersonic boom."
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Recent Reasons for Optimism VI
While it's been awhile, I think it's time for another installment of Recent (more or less) Reasons for Optimism.
The Best of Humanity
1. Buzzfeed profiles some of the heroes of Sandy Hook. A single man embodied the worst that humanity can be and caused enormous suffering. But these six women stood up to the challenge and saved dozens of lives, some at the cost of their own.
2. Buzzfeed also has a list of "26 Moments that Restored Our Faith in Humanity." My favorites include the responses to Hurricane Sandy at #4 and #5, the man with the arthritic dog at #23, and the "parents of the year" at #24.
Health
3. This infographic, covering the leading causes of death since 1900, has some great reasons for optimism. The number one cause of death in 2010 was heart disease, but the deaths caused by heart disease have fallen steadily since their peak in the 60s, from about 370 to 193 per 100,000. Deaths from the second-worst killer, cancer, have also been falling since they peaked in the early 90s.
4. Scientists in the UK have successfully spurred nerve regeneration in paralyzed dogs by transplanting cells from the dogs' own noses to the injured areas. It remains to be seen if the technique will work in humans, but over several months, the dogs went from complete paralysis in the rear legs to being able to walk on a treadmill without assistance.
5. Jan Scheuermann, who is paralyzed from the neck down, can now operate a robotic arm using only her mind "with speeds comparable to the able-bodied" and with a 91.6% accuracy rate.
Civil Liberties
6. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill that would require law enforcement to actually get warrants to read private emails, no matter how old the email is. The bill will now go to the full Senate, and if it passes there, would also need to pass the House and be signed by Obama, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Technology
7. Self-driving cars are inching closer to reality. Ford plans to introduce cars that can drive for you in stressful stop-and-go traffic, possibly by 2015. But Volvo will beat them to the punch with cars that can drive themselves at slow speeds in 2014. Meanwhile, a company called Rio Tinto is already using ten driverless trucks to transport iron ore, with plans to expand to 150 over the next few years.
8. 3D printing is coming to a store near you, at least in Europe. Staples will be offering 3D printing services next year in The Netherlands and Belgium. No doubt the US will soon follow, if this turns out to be profitable for them. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is providing 3D printing free for students (ht). Researchers in Britain are also having some success in printing electronics.
9. From Planetary Resources, a nearly hour-long video with a great amount of detail on the work they're doing to mine asteroids. Early in the video, Eric Anderson says, "The fact of the matter is that the population of the planet has grown a lot over the last couple hundred years, and people live longer, people live much better lives. It's really an extraordinary time to be alive. And yet, we're just at the cusp of doing some of the more incredibly exciting things that we never thought were possible before."
Some more highlights:
Economics
11. In the US, household net worth is the highest it's been since 2007, and higher than any point prior to 2006. The total value of US real estate is also on the rise for the first time since 2006.
12. Don Boudreaux is in the midst of a series of blog entries detailing how everyday items are both less expensive and higher quality today than in 1956, based on an old Sears catalog from that year. So far, he's included women's clothing, bedsheets and lawn care. Mark Perry has made similar observations using other old advertisements, including dishwashers and home entertainment.
And finally, not a reason for optimism, but rather a quote from Winston Churchill: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
The Best of Humanity
1. Buzzfeed profiles some of the heroes of Sandy Hook. A single man embodied the worst that humanity can be and caused enormous suffering. But these six women stood up to the challenge and saved dozens of lives, some at the cost of their own.
2. Buzzfeed also has a list of "26 Moments that Restored Our Faith in Humanity." My favorites include the responses to Hurricane Sandy at #4 and #5, the man with the arthritic dog at #23, and the "parents of the year" at #24.
Health
3. This infographic, covering the leading causes of death since 1900, has some great reasons for optimism. The number one cause of death in 2010 was heart disease, but the deaths caused by heart disease have fallen steadily since their peak in the 60s, from about 370 to 193 per 100,000. Deaths from the second-worst killer, cancer, have also been falling since they peaked in the early 90s.
4. Scientists in the UK have successfully spurred nerve regeneration in paralyzed dogs by transplanting cells from the dogs' own noses to the injured areas. It remains to be seen if the technique will work in humans, but over several months, the dogs went from complete paralysis in the rear legs to being able to walk on a treadmill without assistance.
5. Jan Scheuermann, who is paralyzed from the neck down, can now operate a robotic arm using only her mind "with speeds comparable to the able-bodied" and with a 91.6% accuracy rate.
Civil Liberties
6. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill that would require law enforcement to actually get warrants to read private emails, no matter how old the email is. The bill will now go to the full Senate, and if it passes there, would also need to pass the House and be signed by Obama, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Technology
7. Self-driving cars are inching closer to reality. Ford plans to introduce cars that can drive for you in stressful stop-and-go traffic, possibly by 2015. But Volvo will beat them to the punch with cars that can drive themselves at slow speeds in 2014. Meanwhile, a company called Rio Tinto is already using ten driverless trucks to transport iron ore, with plans to expand to 150 over the next few years.
8. 3D printing is coming to a store near you, at least in Europe. Staples will be offering 3D printing services next year in The Netherlands and Belgium. No doubt the US will soon follow, if this turns out to be profitable for them. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is providing 3D printing free for students (ht). Researchers in Britain are also having some success in printing electronics.
9. From Planetary Resources, a nearly hour-long video with a great amount of detail on the work they're doing to mine asteroids. Early in the video, Eric Anderson says, "The fact of the matter is that the population of the planet has grown a lot over the last couple hundred years, and people live longer, people live much better lives. It's really an extraordinary time to be alive. And yet, we're just at the cusp of doing some of the more incredibly exciting things that we never thought were possible before."
Some more highlights:
- 17% of near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach than the surface of the moon.
- Platinum-group metals are usually mined in concentrations of a few parts per billion and have an average price of $1500 per ounce. A single 500-meter asteroid has more of these metals than have been mined from Earth in the history of humanity.
- Anderson: "Some of the naysayers to asteroid mining say, well gee, if you bring back all the platinum, then the price will crash. And I say, great. I would love to see that. I would like to see a world of abundance."
Economics
11. In the US, household net worth is the highest it's been since 2007, and higher than any point prior to 2006. The total value of US real estate is also on the rise for the first time since 2006.
12. Don Boudreaux is in the midst of a series of blog entries detailing how everyday items are both less expensive and higher quality today than in 1956, based on an old Sears catalog from that year. So far, he's included women's clothing, bedsheets and lawn care. Mark Perry has made similar observations using other old advertisements, including dishwashers and home entertainment.
And finally, not a reason for optimism, but rather a quote from Winston Churchill: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Recent Reasons for Optimism V
The latest installment of recent reasons for optimism was a bit delayed on account of this being the tenth day of a ten-day workweek for me. But that doesn't mean there was any less good news! There's been lots of good news in health, but there's also reasons for optimism on the economy, civil liberties and even the threat of asteroid impact.
Health
1. First the bad news-- the cytomegalovirus (CMV) infects 50-80% of people in the US, UK and Australia, and decreases life expectancy as much as smoking or drinking because of its unique effects on the immune system. Now the good news-- researchers at the University of Birmingham are working on an antiviral drug to reverse CMV's effects, potentially adding years to life expectancy. The drug has shown promise in mice, and tests on humans will begin soon. Finally, the great news-- researchers at the University of Connecticut at Farmington have genetically modified CMV to take advantage of what it does to the immune system. The result is a self-reinforcing cancer vaccine. In a study on mice, an untreated control group died of cancer within 23 days; the CMV-treated group lived for the entire length of the study.
2. A new breathalyzer can detect some kinds of cancer on your breath (ht Jason Silva). Although currently less accurate than more complicated tests, it's also far less costly, and could provide cancer screening to the poor around the world who can't afford current tests.
3. One more on cancer: Researchers have developed a patch (that looks very much like the birth control patch) that completely eliminated a certain kind of skin cancer after wearing it just three times, for three hours each. It was a very small trial, with just ten patients, but three months later the cancer was still gone from all ten patients, and after six months, there was no cancer in eight out of ten patients.
4. In Sweden, doctors have successfully transplanted a vein into a 10-year-old girl without the use of immunosuppressive drugs. They accomplished the feat by removing all of the donor's cells from the vein and replacing them with the girl's own stem cells.
Cyborgs and Robotics
5. We're one step closer to brain implants, as a team from MIT has invented a fuel cell to convert glucose in the brain into electricity that can be used by implants or prosthetics. (ht MR)
6. Picking up different kinds of objects is difficult and expensive for robots, especially when the shape of the object may not be known in advance. In an amazing example of the simplicity of innovation, a team at Cornell has found a solution using a balloon and ground coffee.
Economics
7. I've mentioned before on this blog that world income is higher than ever before and steadily increasing. Matt Ridley shares a graph showing that not only is world income higher, it's also more equitable.
8. Great news for free-traders: Both Mexico and Canada have now joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The TPP, originally an agreement between New Zealand, Chile, Brunei and Singapore, is now being expanded to include the three NAFTA countries, the US, Canada and Mexico, as well as Japan, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia. If an agreement is reached between all these countries, the TPP would become the largest free trade area in the world, comprising a full third of world GDP.
Civil Liberties and Crime
9. The Canadian government has backed down from their plan to record private conversations at border crossings and airports. What makes this even more encouraging is that this rapid about-face came in a non-election year, with the Conservatives' majority solidly in place until 2015. And it may not be just the Canadian government-- the US Department of State has withdrawn a request for bids to develop a system to monitor social media.
10. New Yorkers are striking back against that city's "stop and frisk" policy with a new app that allows New Yorkers to easily record and share video of police encounters and report them to the NYCLU. This is a small example of advancing technology being used to protect civil liberties.
11. Crime is down across-the-board. Violent crime fell by 4% from 2010 to 2011, the fifth year in a row it's fallen. That's true across the country, with every region except the Northeast seeing a drop of 4.5% or more. Property crimes were also down for the ninth year in a row, down 0.8% from 2010.
Everything Else
12. NASA scientists say there is little to no threat of a civilization-ending asteroid strike. Lindley Johnson of the Near Earth Object Observation Program says, "We know everything out there that is that big, and there is just nothing right now that's in an orbit that's any threat toward the Earth."
13. Ed Krayewski at Reason lists the "top 5 pieces of good news in the bad news." Some of his reasoning is a bit strained, but it's nevertheless an interesting list.
14. For even more optimism, check out these "21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity." Among the obligatory pictures of people rescuing animals, there's a Subway restaurant giving free food to the homeless, a dry cleaner's offering free cleaning for the unemployed for job interviews, and the story of the Japanese seniors who volunteered to clean the radiation at Fukushima so the young wouldn't have to.
Health
1. First the bad news-- the cytomegalovirus (CMV) infects 50-80% of people in the US, UK and Australia, and decreases life expectancy as much as smoking or drinking because of its unique effects on the immune system. Now the good news-- researchers at the University of Birmingham are working on an antiviral drug to reverse CMV's effects, potentially adding years to life expectancy. The drug has shown promise in mice, and tests on humans will begin soon. Finally, the great news-- researchers at the University of Connecticut at Farmington have genetically modified CMV to take advantage of what it does to the immune system. The result is a self-reinforcing cancer vaccine. In a study on mice, an untreated control group died of cancer within 23 days; the CMV-treated group lived for the entire length of the study.
2. A new breathalyzer can detect some kinds of cancer on your breath (ht Jason Silva). Although currently less accurate than more complicated tests, it's also far less costly, and could provide cancer screening to the poor around the world who can't afford current tests.
3. One more on cancer: Researchers have developed a patch (that looks very much like the birth control patch) that completely eliminated a certain kind of skin cancer after wearing it just three times, for three hours each. It was a very small trial, with just ten patients, but three months later the cancer was still gone from all ten patients, and after six months, there was no cancer in eight out of ten patients.
4. In Sweden, doctors have successfully transplanted a vein into a 10-year-old girl without the use of immunosuppressive drugs. They accomplished the feat by removing all of the donor's cells from the vein and replacing them with the girl's own stem cells.
Cyborgs and Robotics
5. We're one step closer to brain implants, as a team from MIT has invented a fuel cell to convert glucose in the brain into electricity that can be used by implants or prosthetics. (ht MR)
6. Picking up different kinds of objects is difficult and expensive for robots, especially when the shape of the object may not be known in advance. In an amazing example of the simplicity of innovation, a team at Cornell has found a solution using a balloon and ground coffee.
Economics
7. I've mentioned before on this blog that world income is higher than ever before and steadily increasing. Matt Ridley shares a graph showing that not only is world income higher, it's also more equitable.
8. Great news for free-traders: Both Mexico and Canada have now joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The TPP, originally an agreement between New Zealand, Chile, Brunei and Singapore, is now being expanded to include the three NAFTA countries, the US, Canada and Mexico, as well as Japan, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia. If an agreement is reached between all these countries, the TPP would become the largest free trade area in the world, comprising a full third of world GDP.
Civil Liberties and Crime
9. The Canadian government has backed down from their plan to record private conversations at border crossings and airports. What makes this even more encouraging is that this rapid about-face came in a non-election year, with the Conservatives' majority solidly in place until 2015. And it may not be just the Canadian government-- the US Department of State has withdrawn a request for bids to develop a system to monitor social media.
10. New Yorkers are striking back against that city's "stop and frisk" policy with a new app that allows New Yorkers to easily record and share video of police encounters and report them to the NYCLU. This is a small example of advancing technology being used to protect civil liberties.
11. Crime is down across-the-board. Violent crime fell by 4% from 2010 to 2011, the fifth year in a row it's fallen. That's true across the country, with every region except the Northeast seeing a drop of 4.5% or more. Property crimes were also down for the ninth year in a row, down 0.8% from 2010.
Everything Else
12. NASA scientists say there is little to no threat of a civilization-ending asteroid strike. Lindley Johnson of the Near Earth Object Observation Program says, "We know everything out there that is that big, and there is just nothing right now that's in an orbit that's any threat toward the Earth."
13. Ed Krayewski at Reason lists the "top 5 pieces of good news in the bad news." Some of his reasoning is a bit strained, but it's nevertheless an interesting list.
14. For even more optimism, check out these "21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity." Among the obligatory pictures of people rescuing animals, there's a Subway restaurant giving free food to the homeless, a dry cleaner's offering free cleaning for the unemployed for job interviews, and the story of the Japanese seniors who volunteered to clean the radiation at Fukushima so the young wouldn't have to.
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