For your mental health and mine I decided to skip the usual war coverage today and focus on something good. Our brains need a bit of a respite from time to time and I think lazy Sundays are the perfect time to tell you all about some of the truly good and interesting things also happening in the world.
Just because I may not know you doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you. So please enjoy these little tidbits of good from around the world:
🐝 Honeybees are doing better than we feared — and science helped. Researchers at Oxford engineered a yeast supplement that gives honeybees the essential sterols missing from their modern diet — primarily because industrial agriculture has stripped flower diversity. Colonies fed the supplement produced up to 15 times more developing young. Fifteen times. Bee populations have been in crisis for two decades. This won’t solve everything, but it’s a genuine, concrete, replicable intervention.1
🧬 A gentler CRISPR — without cutting DNA. Scientists at the University of New South Wales developed a form of CRISPR that switches genes back on by removing the chemical tags that silence them — without cutting the DNA strand at all. The immediate application is sickle cell disease, reactivating a fetal blood gene that effectively treats it. The broader implication is gene therapy with dramatically fewer unintended side effects. This is the kind of painstaking, unglamorous science that saves lives quietly.2
🦠 Chile eliminated leprosy. The World Health Organization officially verified this month that Chile is the first country in the Americas — and only the second country in the world — to eliminate leprosy. No locally acquired cases in over 30 years. Decades of sustained public health surveillance, early diagnosis, and multidrug therapy. A disease that has afflicted and stigmatized humans for thousands of years, eliminated in an entire hemisphere’s largest country. That happened.3
🏘️ A village built under a bridge — for free. This might be my favorite story on this list.
In Manchester, England, a 40-unit fully-furnished housing development opened this month specifically for people experiencing homelessness. It was built pro bono under 22 railway arches. Every unit. No cost to residents. They called it Embassy Village. It’s not a shelter — it’s housing. The distinction matters.4
🌍 A fossil that rewrites human origins. A new fossil ape discovered in northern Egypt — named Masripithecus, lived 17-18 million years ago — may sit at or near the ancestor of all modern apes. It was found this month and published this week. It doesn’t change your life. But it changes the story of all life. Humans, chimps, gorillas, gibbons — all of us trace back through this animal. It’s humbling in the best possible way.5
We’ll get back to covering the war (and more) tomorrow. For now, make sure you hydrate, go outside, and call someone to tell them you love them.
🐝 Honeybees — Oxford University (primary source): https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-08-20-saving-bees-superfoods-new-engineered-supplement-found-boost-colony-reproduction
🧬 CRISPR without cutting DNA — UNSW Sydney (primary source): https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/08/new-CRISPR-technique-could-rewrite-future-genetic-disease-treatment
🦠 Chile eliminates leprosy — WHO (primary source): https://www.who.int/news/item/04-03-2026-chile-becomes-the-first-country-in-the-americas-to-be-verified-by-who-for-the-elimination-of-leprosy
🏘️ Embassy Village, Manchester — Good Good Good: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/good-news-this-week-march-21-2026
🌍 Masripithecus fossil, Egypt — ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260327000518.htm
You have virtual coffee with me every morning, Rudy. A Chicano in Paris reports on a level that Walter Cronkite would approve. (PS. I know, I’m old so I’ll explain. Walter helped end the Vietnam War and bring many of my classmates home alive with his reporting at another time when national reporting and government were lying to us)
One of my favourite things that happened during Covid was John Krasinski doing his Good News TV. This is important! Thank you