The Best News of 2021

Best News of 2021

Despite the ongoing pandemic good things happen every month. Hence in the tradition of the year in review we like to remind you of three randomly selected news articles of each month.

January

Superbugs have an arsenal of defences — but we've found a new way around them

We found a new way to revert antibiotic resistance. It involves using phage therapy to resensitise a type of bacteria to antibiotics.

11/01/2021 The Conversation

Futuristic sleeping pods for homeless people installed in German city

Tests are underway to if the pods protect against frostbite. If so, they could be rolled out across Germany

22/01/2021 The Independent

Jobs, houses and cows: China’s costly drive to erase extreme poverty

In just five years, China says it has lifted from extreme poverty over 50 million farmers left behind by breakneck economic growth in cities.

03/01/2021 The Japan Times

February

Magnets, vacuums and plant-based nets: the new fight to clean plastic from our seas

When it comes to microplastics, there’s rarely good news. Researchers continue to find the tiny plastic fragments everywhere they look.

18/02/2021 The Guardian

Why helping others is good for you

People who volunteer report higher levels of wellbeing, greater life satisfaction and less depression. But your motivation can impact how happy helping makes you feel.

04/02/2021 Deutsche Welle

'A role model': how Seville is turning leftover oranges into electricity

In spring the air in Seville is sweet with the scent of azahar, orange blossom, but the 5.7m kilos of bitter fruit the city’s 48,000 trees deposit on the streets in winter are a hazard for pedestrians and a headache for the city’s cleaning…

23/02/2021 The Guardian

March

Malaria: Infections halved in children in Ivory Coast using new technology

Malaria is a leading cause of death for children and is most prevalent in some of the world's poorest countries. A new lure-and-kill style device trial shows potential for a major drop in malaria-spreading mosquitoes.

04/03/2021 Deutsche Welle

San Francisco experiment gives $1,000 a month to pregnant women

‘There [are] so many negative narratives around low-income families, and in particular, low-income Black families as being people who waste welfare dollars,’ project leader says

18/03/2021 The Independent

I changed up my sanitary products for a more sustainable menstrual cup. This is how I got on

Banana bread, Duo Lingo and pottery all took a backseat in lockdown to finally getting a handle on an alternative and more eco-friendly period product for Helen Coffey

01/03/2021 The Independent

April

If you want to build back greener, take a leaf out of Indonesia’s book

The country’s efforts to reduce the loss of tropical forests will have an impact not just domestically but for the whole world

14/04/2021 The Independent

Woman receives first trachea transplant

After years of struggling to breathe and fearing she might suffocate in her sleep, Sonia Sein says she feels well enough to dance around with her grandchildren after undergoing the first-ever human trachea transplant at Mount Sinai in New York.

07/04/2021 CNN

How the world’s biggest wind farm may help South Korea’s net-zero dream

The end of generations of fishermen off the coast of South Korea could be contentious but many are coming to terms with it, knowing carbon neutrality is absolutely necessary, writes Heesu Lee and Will Mathis

09/04/2021 The Independent

May

Ethical bling: Pandora will no longer use mined diamonds

Mined diamonds have been tainted by ethical concerns, and Pandora will now use only ones made in labs.

04/05/2021 Al Jazeera

Acid test: scientists show how LSD opens doors of perception

When Aldous Huxley emerged from a mescaline trip that veered from an obsession with the folds in his trousers to wonder at the “miraculous” tubularity of the bamboo legs on his garden chairs, he offered an opinion on how the drug worked.

19/05/2021 The Guardian

Three ways to ensure diversity training actually works

More and more employers are trying to increase the diversity of their staff – and rightly so. A recent report from management consulting firm McKinsey found that greater diversity within an organisation leads to greater productivity and profit, and…

19/05/2021 The Conversation

June

People in Oregon will soon be allowed to compost dead friends and family

Oregon has become the third state in the US to legalise a new end-of-life process of human composting or “natural organic reduction” of the human body.

18/06/2021 The Independent

‘This isn’t ideological’: reluctant activists behind Exxon coup

The activist hedge fund behind ExxonMobil’s boardroom coup last week has claimed another seat from the oil giant’s board, to take the number of new directors who will push for climate action from within the company to three.

04/06/2021 The Guardian

Timber’s time: wood is making a comeback in construction, bringing many benefits

It’s versatile, light, carbon-capturing and may even make us feel better when we’re surrounded by it

11/06/2021 Positive News

July

Imperfect global tax deal is perfect springboard

Just organizing a meeting of 130 people is hard. Getting that number of governments to agree on a corporate tax regime is an astonishing achievement. That makes a new deal, whose signatories account for more than 90% of world GDP, worth celebrating…

01/07/2021 Reuters

Off University: The Free Online University Created by Exiled and Blacklisted Academics

When authoritarian regimes clamp down on freedoms, academics are often the first targets. Now, suppressed academics have teamed with international universities to create a platform that allows their voice to continue to be heard.

16/07/2021 Reset.org

Papilio: A Wind-Powered Street Light That Only Works When You Need It

Conventional electric street lights not only use up energy - they're also a source of light pollution, affect local biodiversity and can reduce quality of life for city dwellers. A new design for a wind- powered, motion-detecting street light might…

15/07/2021 Reset.org

August

Sprakebüll: A German village embraces a solar future

While Germany mulls over better solutions for a climate-friendly future, one northern village has already made the transition. And its residents say the benefits are worth every penny. A visit to Sprakebüll.

02/08/2021 Deutsche Welle

Cars have been guzzling leaded gasoline for 99 years. Not any more

Nearly a century of leaded gasoline use on roads around the world has come to an end, the UN Environment Programme announced Monday, after Algerian service stations stopped selling the fuel last month.

30/08/2021 CNN

The future of flying? Hybrid plane takes to the skies in landmark UK flight

The hybrid aircraft is an important step in the race to decarbonise aviation, but net-zero flights remains some way off yet

25/08/2021 Positive News

September

Crispr mini: new genetic editing technology could cure hereditary diseases including Parkinsons

A genetic “Swiss army knife” has been created which could treat incurable hereditary diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anaemia and Parkinson’s. The technology is an improvement on the ground-breaking Crispr gene-editing procedure first…

03/09/2021 Telegraph

World’s biggest plant to suck carbon dioxide from the air goes into operation in Iceland

The world’s first and largest factory to capture and convert carbon dioxide from the air into stone begun operations in Iceland on Wednesday.

09/09/2021 The Independent

A Gene-Editing Experiment Let These Patients With Vision Loss See Color Again

In a first, doctors injected the gene-editing tool CRISPR directly into cells in patients' eyes. The experiment helped these vision-impaired patients see shapes and colors again.

29/09/2021 NPR

October

Needle-free vaccine patches coming soon, researchers and makers say

Researchers have doubled down on efforts to create patches that deliver life-saving drugs painlessly to the skin, a development that could revolutionize medicine.

30/10/2021 The Japan Times

Forest schools flourish as youngsters log off and learn from nature

After more than a year of lockdowns, with limited access to nature, Magdalena Begh was delighted when her six-year-old daughter came home from forest school and informed her she had found three rat skeletons.

31/10/2021 The Guardian

Mature trees can ‘learn’ to raise CO2 absorption, study finds in potential boost for climate change

New research has found that mature oak trees can increase their rate of photosynthesis to absorb higher quantities of carbon dioxide

04/10/2021 The Independent

November

Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope

The world as we knew it is coming to an end, and it’s up to us how it ends and what comes after. It’s the end of the age of fossil fuel, but if the fossil-fuel corporations have their way the ending will be delayed as long as possible, with as…

18/11/2021 The Guardian

Rare case of woman's body ridding itself of HIV

A woman from Argentina appears to have rid herself of HIV without drugs or treatment - the second documented case of its kind in the world. Doctors believe the patient's immune system cleared the virus on its own.

16/11/2021 BBC

‘It’s incredible’: HPV vaccine saves thousands of women from cervical cancer, UK study shows

The NHS vaccination programme to prevent cervical cancer has so far stopped thousands of women from developing the disease and experiencing pre-cancerous changes to cells, a study has found.

04/11/2021 The Guardian