💡 Premium Supporter recap + fact-based optimistic news
🦾 AI saved Joseph Coates' life - and can save millions more. 🏭 The number of planned coal power plants in the OECD has decreased by 96%. ☄️ New telescopes make us safer from asteroid threats.
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📚 Deal signed: My book will be published by Mondial
When I decided to write a new book about AI, I identified four publishers I thought would be a good fit. Two of them offered me contracts, which gave me the incredible luxury of choosing. Both publishers felt like great options, but I chose Mondial because I believe they are the best match for the high ambition I have for the book.
Mondial is an impressive publisher. While nonfiction book sales in Sweden have dropped by 50 percent(!) in recent years, they’ve gone from being a startup to consistently having about ten books in the top 100 each year.
A huge THANK YOU to the over 300 of you who gave feedback on my pitch to publishers last fall. That definitely helped me land such a great publisher.
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
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💡 David Deutsch: Optimism, Pessimism and Cynicism
From the archive, because of book writing.
With so much progress in the world, how can pessimism still be widespread? It is because of cynicism, denying that “so-called-progress” is progress, argues David Deutsch, professor at Oxford University and one of the world's leading intellectuals on optimism.
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🏭 The number of planned coal power plants in the OECD has decreased by 96% since 2015
The number of proposed coal power plants within the OECD region has decreased from 142 in 2015 to only five today. Of the five remaining proposals, four plants include plans for carbon capture.
🦾 AI saved Joseph Coates' life - and can save millions more
Researchers are using AI to find new uses for existing drugs that can treat rare diseases. Joseph Coates survived a deadly blood disorder thanks to a treatment identified by an AI model.
☄️ New telescopes make us safer from asteroid threats – but the media will keep scaring us
The media reported extensively on asteroid 2024 YR4, which was at risk of hitting Earth. That risk has since been downgraded. Several powerful new telescopes will soon come into operation, which are expected to increase the discovery of near-Earth asteroids by 10 to 100 times.
💉 New drug slows ALS
The drug Tofersen shows good results for patients with ALS caused by mutations in the SOD1 gene, which accounts for 5-6 percent of all ALS cases. Several patients have experienced significant slowing of disease progression, and in some cases the disease has stabilized at the same level.
🤼 Record increase in young sports participants in Sweden
The number of participation occasions in Swedish sports has increased by almost five million between 2019 and 2024. Football shows dramatic growth with a 23 percent increase since 2019. Several martial arts show positive development after difficult pandemic years.
👮 Deadly violence decreased in Sweden during 2024
A total of 92 cases of deadly violence were recorded during 2024, which is 29 fewer cases than the previous year. The number of victims under 18 years decreased by 7 cases, from 17 to 10 cases compared to 2023.
💉 mRNA vaccine against pancreatic cancer shows promising results
Patients who developed an immune response from the personalized cancer vaccine have not yet experienced recurrence after more than three years of follow-up. The vaccine creates T cells that can live for up to 100 years and retain their ability to identify and fight cancer cells.
🎙️ AI talk or master class?
I'm giving a lot of talks and master classes on AI in several different countries. Happy to come to your organization.
Learn more at mathiassundin.org.
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