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Archive of Human Genius
The world’s largest database of good news and social change milestones from throughout human history
A Timeline of Human History A Database of Good News An Imagining of our Collective Future
We are building the world’s largest database of social change milestones, from the first fire to today’s good news. Change is not only possible, it has happened consistently throughout human history.
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2024 C.E.
October 11
A new 4,543-square-mile area off a gorgeous and ecologically rich stretch of the California coast has achieved federal protection. The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary was officially designated Friday along 116 miles of the coast in the San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. Created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is the country’s third-largest marine sanctuary. It is also first designed with the involvement of Indigenous groups and the first in 30 years in California.
2024 C.E.
October 14
South America’s tallest tree, a 400-year-old red angelim in the northern tip of the Brazilian Amazon, is the star of a newly created conservation area called the Giant Trees of the Amazon State Park. The area was officially sectioned off from the larger Paru State Forest for stronger protection. Now, the 1.38-million-acre Giant Trees of the Amazon State Park has been upgraded to the “full protection” category. This means that activities like logging, permitted under the “sustainable use” category when it was previously part of Paru State Park, can no longer be proposed in its bounds.
2024 C.E.
October 9
Conservation authorities in the Republic of Congo have launched a plan to invest in the protection of “high-integrity forests” in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, treating these ecosystems as an asset class. The new initiative aims to fill a funding gap to protect the ROC’s forests by selling high-integrity forest (HIFOR) units, defined as representing “one hectare of healthy, high integrity tropical forest actively conserved within a large landscape for decades.”
2024 C.E.
October 8
The World Health Organization has validated the world's most populous country as having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. India joins Nepal and Myanmar in the WHO South-East Asia Region and 19 other countries globally that have previously achieved this feat. Though trachoma is preventable, blindness from trachoma is extremely difficult to reverse. Trachoma continues to be a public health problem in 39 countries and is responsible for the blindness of about 1.9 million people.
2024 C.E.
October 8
President Biden has announced $2.6 billion in funding to replace all lead pipes in the United States as part of a new EPA rule that will require lead pipes to be identified and replaced within 10 years using the new funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. The EPA estimates that nine million homes in the U.S. still have lead pipes. "Studies show ... communities of color have been the hardest hit," Mr. Biden said. "One study showed Black children were at least two times more likely to have elevated levels of lead in their blood than children of other racial groups. We have an obligation to make things right."
2024 C.E.
October 8
In a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers analyzed measurements from all available monitoring stations in the Northern Hemisphere and found that atmospheric concentrations of mercury declined by about 10% between 2005 and 2020. They used two separate modeling methods to determine what is driving that trend. Both techniques pointed to a decline in mercury emissions from human activity as the most likely cause.
2024 C.E.
October 7
The country's environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has declared Australia will soon protect more ocean than any other country after the government finalizes a more than 300,000 square kilometer expansion of a sub-Antarctic marine park. Speaking ahead of what was billed as a global nature-positive summit in Sydney, Plibersek confirmed the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve about 4,000 km south-west of Perth would quadruple in size.
2024 C.E.
October 3
Gilead Sciences says it has signed agreements with six manufacturers to make and sell generic lenacapavir in 120 “high-incidence, resource-limited” countries. Lenacapavir, given as a twice-yearly injection, has shown strong results for HIV prevention. It stopped infection in a trial involving girls and women in South Africa and Uganda, and offered almost complete protection in a second trial that mainly involved men across Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, and the U.S.
2024 C.E.
October 4
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that member states must recognize legal documents from other countries that reflect a person’s changed name and gender identity, regardless of the member state’s own laws on changing one’s name and identity. Marie-Hélène Ludwig, senior strategic litigator with the LGBTQ+ rights organization ILGA-Europe, said in a statement, "This judgement will have an immensely positive impact, increasing legal protection for all trans people in the E.U..."
2024 C.E.
October 4
Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is an infectious disease caused by the monkeypox virus. A global outbreak first emerged in May 2022 which WHO said constituted a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm under international health law. Africa has seen an unprecedented increase and expansion in mpox cases this year, with transmission mainly centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. WHO said early diagnosis is critical as it enables timely treatment and care, as well as control of the virus. A new test from Abbott Molecular now makes that much more possible.
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