🎙️ Back as a podcast
A few years ago we did the week's news as a podcast too, but when we had to scale things back, there just wasn't time for it. Now it's back!
Back then it was me reading the news, now it's WALL-Y.
We'll put out a news podcast once a week, on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. Central European Time.
Going forward, I'll also read my own pieces aloud and publish them in the same place. Aiming to start that next week.
Find it wherever you get your podcasts, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Part 4 on the energy society
I've followed Jonas Birgersson and his extremely ambitious EnergyNet project from the start and kept you updated along the way. This time it wasn't Birgersson I met in Lund, but two of his colleagues.
One of them was with him on the crazy internet ride back in the '90s and has now returned to his side. You'll find Part 4 here.
Also glad I got a small homage to Patrick Stewart into the piece. He played Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek and went more boldly than anyone where no one had gone before. Patrick Stewart died on October 28.
Mathias Sundin
Angry Optimist
🔋 Part 4: Towards the energy society – a new crew comes aboard
Energize!
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🩻 AI spots pancreatic cancer on scans that look normal
Today, more than 85 percent of cases are not found until the cancer has spread.
The AI found 73 percent of the cancer cases on scans that had been judged normal, compared with 39 percent for radiologists.
On scans taken more than two years before diagnosis, the AI found 68 percent of the cases, compared with 23 percent for the doctors.
The results held on scans from several hospitals and different scanners, and the AI gave the same answer on repeat scans in 90 to 92 percent of cases.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🧪 Fat cells destroy themselves after new injection
Rats given the injection regained less weight when the weight-loss drug was stopped.
Visceral fat, which surrounds the organs, decreased by 12 percent four weeks after the last injection, while it increased by almost 6 percent with placebo.
Eight to twelve weeks after treatment, the difference from the placebo group was 22 percentage points.
No serious side effects were reported, and the most common ones were temporary pain, swelling and redness at the injection site.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🇮🇹 Murders in Italy have fallen by 83 percent since 1991
Only 19 murders in Italy were counted as mafia killings in 2024. None were in the north.
The number of murders in Italy fell from 1,916 in 1991 to 327 in 2024.
When the mafia murdered judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, the state had already begun building up special anti-mafia police and prosecutors.
In 2023, Italy had one of the lowest homicide rates in the EU, 0.4 per 100,000 people compared with an average of almost 0.7.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🌳 Thirsty trees in Berlin get water from 12,000 neighbors
An app that feels like a game.
The app Gieß den Kiez shows more than 960,000 trees in Berlin and calculates how much water each tree needs.
About 12,000 people have signed up to water trees alongside the city's maintenance crews.
On the day Berlin set its heat record, at 39.9°C (103.8°F), volunteers poured around 8,000 liters (about 2,100 gallons) of water on the city's trees.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🔋 Germany is building 91 percent more battery storage than last year
More than half a million new batteries went into operation in the first nine months of the year.
Germany built 8.2 gigawatt-hours of new battery capacity from January to September 2026, 91 percent more than in the same period of 2025.
More than half a million new battery systems went into operation, 303,000 of them in ordinary homes.
The capacity of large-scale battery parks more than quadrupled, from 0.9 to 3.8 gigawatt-hours.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
👁️ Cholesterol medication linked to 15 percent lower risk of glaucoma
The risk of laser treatment for glaucoma was 60 percent lower with statins.
People who took statins had a 15 percent lower risk of developing the most common form of glaucoma.
Among people who already had glaucoma, the risk of minimally invasive eye surgery was 55 percent lower in those who took statins.
After ten years, the risk of both the disease and more intensive treatment was still lower in those who took statins.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
💰 Extreme poverty in Indonesia more than halved in two years
Overall poverty also fell, to 8.07 percent, the lowest in ten years.
In March 2024, 3.56 million Indonesians lived in extreme poverty, so the number has more than halved in two years.
Poverty measured by Indonesia's own poverty line also fell, to 8.07 percent in March 2026, the lowest level in ten years.
The state has supported 26.8 million poor families, and 44,200 children from the poorest homes attend the Sekolah Rakyat school program.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🐈 Cats eat cultivated mouse meat as readily as chicken
The cultivated meat produces 92 percent fewer emissions than beef byproducts.
In an independent test with 40 cats, 20 chose the cultivated treat first and 20 chose the chicken treat.
17 cats ate more of the cultivated treat and 19 ate more of the chicken treat, a difference that is not statistically significant.
BioCraft can sell its cultivated meat as an ingredient in pet food in the EU, after registering with Austrian authorities.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🔭 Webb finds the most distant ring galaxy yet
A ring galaxy can form when a smaller galaxy plunges straight through a larger one.
The Webb space telescope shows the galaxy GS18660 as it looked 2.1 billion years after the Big Bang, which makes it the most distant known ring galaxy.
The galaxy forms new stars equal to about 100 solar masses per year, mainly in the ring and in the core.
A small neighboring galaxy, which is moving away at 425 kilometers per second (about 264 miles per second) and is connected by a bridge of gas, is likely the one that created the ring.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🚗 US car thefts fall for the third year in a row
The risk of having your car stolen has dropped by almost 40 percent in two years.
In the first half of 2026, 268,415 vehicles were stolen in the US, 21 percent fewer than in the same period in 2025.
All 50 states had fewer thefts than the year before.
In 2025, 659,880 vehicles were stolen, 23 percent fewer than in 2024 and the lowest level in several decades.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🇨🇴 Colombia's peace agreement holds after ten years
Former guerrilla fighters have started more than 300 cooperatives, not 25 as planned.
About 85 percent of FARC's former fighters are still in the program for reintegration into civilian life.
The peace agreement planned for about 25 cooperatives, but the former fighters have started more than 300.
The cooperatives work in farming, textiles, brewing, construction and tourism, among other fields.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
💉 Drug combination led to 23 percent weight loss in type 2 diabetes
The added drug mimics a satiety hormone. The highest dose cut weight by 24.5 kilograms.
Over 48 weeks, people with type 2 diabetes lost an average of 23.3 percent of their body weight on the highest dose, compared with 14.8 percent on tirzepatide alone.
All four dose combinations led to weight loss of between 13.2 and 23.3 percent, while the placebo group lost 3 percent.
Lilly will start phase 3 studies of the combination before the end of 2026, with both drugs in a single product.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🏞️ Toxic algal blooms nearly gone from the Klamath River
The dams stored heat like a battery and released warm water in the fall.
The toxic algal blooms that often led to warnings against touching the water have nearly disappeared from the Klamath River.
Oxygen levels in the water have risen since four dams were removed in 2024.
In the first year after the removal, the river warmed in the spring and cooled in the fall about three weeks earlier than when the dams were there.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
📱 Large study: Screen time is not linked to problems in most children
Unlike many earlier studies, this one factored in the relationship with parents.
At ages 5 and 10, there was no link between children's total screen time and emotional, behavioral or social problems.
Fifteen-year-olds who used social media and messaging one to two hours a day had about 40 percent lower risk of problems than those who used them less than an hour.
The researchers conclude that advice focused only on how long children use screens likely has limited effect on how they develop.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
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