Isključivo pozitivne vesti i dogadjaji

[Dragan]

Šest trendova koji ohrabruju - i šta možemo naučiti od njih

Mnogi ljudi ocenjuju svetsku situaciju negativnije nego što jeste.

Dina Pomeranz objašnjava zašto su mnoge stvari sve bolje i bolje. Isto važi i za klimatsku krizu: Ne očajavajte, ima nade.

 

Nekada je bilo vreme kada su optimistične knjige iz popularne nauke bile hit na blagajnama. Evolucioni psiholog Stiven Pinker izračunao je javnosti da nikada nismo živeli u tako mirnom, zdravom i bogatom društvu kao što to činimo danas.

Teško je održati ovo poverenje s obzirom na naslove poslednjih meseci i godina. Ratovi, krize, klima – čini se da lošim vestima nema kraja. Jedna osoba koja nije obeshrabrena ovim je Dina Pomeranz. Profesorica primenjene ekonomije na Univerzitetu u Cirihu kaže da nije sve dobro na svetu, ali mnoge stvari postaju sve bolje i bolje.

Pomeranz pripisuje neobuzdano beznađe "činjenici da mnogi ljudi nisu svesni gde se zapravo nalazimo i odakle dolazimo". Na kraju godine, gledamo šest događaja sa njom koji su ohrabrujući.

 

Spoiler

1. Spektakularno smanjenje siromaštva

Oskudica, glad, krajnje siromaštvo: veći dio istorije ti su uveti bili stvarnost većine ljudi. Izračuni pokazuju da je oko 1900. oko 60 posto svetskog stanovništva živjelo u ekstremnom siromaštvu. To znači da nisu mogli zadovoljiti osnovne potrebe, kao što je dovoljno hrane.

Tokom posljednjih 200 godina, globalno siromaštvo je u stalnom padu. U poslednjih nekoliko desetljeća to je posebno brzo poraslo: 1990. godine 30 posto ljudi u svijetu smatralo se ekstremno siromašnim, danas je ta brojka još uvijek 9 posto. Čak i u apsolutnom smislu, broj najsiromašnijih ljudi rapidno pada – iako se broj ljudi u svetu višestruko povećao.

“Teoretski, to bi moglo biti na naslovnicama svaki dan: od jučer je više od 100.000 ljudi pobjeglo iz ekstremnog siromaštva”, kaže Pomeranz. “Naša generacija je iskusila veliko smanjenje siromaštva kao nijedna druga.”

Zanimljivo je da su mnogi ovakav razvoj događaja ocijenili upravo suprotno. Ankete često izražavaju uverenje da se udio siromašnih povećao. Glorificirana ideja da su ljudi živjeli jednostavno, ali sretno također je pogrešna. “Podaci jasno pokazuju da ljudi u siromaštvu imaju manje zadovoljstva životom i više depresije.”

 

2. Gotovo sva djeca u svijetu dožive svoj peti rođendan

 

Gubitak deteta vjerojatno je najgora stvar koja se može dogoditi roditelju. A ipak je to bila sudbina mnogih obitelji tokom stoljeća. Još 1900. godine procijenjeno je da je više od četvoro od desetero dece diljem sveta umrlo pre pete godine života. I u Švajcarskoj je početkom 20. stoleća jedno od petero djece umiralo u prvih nekoliko godina života, a četrdesetih godina prošlog stoleća jedno od 20.

Danas je ta stopa u Švajcarskoj 0,4 posto, a u svetu 3,7 posto. Pomeranz govori o “jednoj od najvećih revolucija prošlog stoleća”. Kao glavne razloge pozitivnog razvoja navodi napredak u medicini poput vakcinacije i antibiotika, kao i pristup zdravstvenim uslugama i čistoj pitkoj vodi. Njen praujak je umro kao dete od trovanja krvi od uboda pčele. Danas se to može sprečiti jednostavnim lečenjem antibioticima.

 

3. Ljudi su sve stariji i duže su zdravi

Dok je smrtnost djece padala, očekivani životni vijek stalno se povećavao. Pomeranz kaže: “1940. očekivani životni vek u Švajcarskoj bio je visok kao, na primjer, u današnjoj Gani – teško je to zamisliti.”

Mnogi ljudi nisu svesni da se taj razvoj nastavlja i danas. U odnosu na 1970. godinu ljudi u Švajcarskoj sada su deset godina stariji, a na afričkom kontinentu gotovo 20 godina. “To su, ako hoćete, desetljećima darovana”, kaže ekonomist. “Jer ljudi ne samo da žive duže, nego su i duže zdravi.”

Protiv mnogih vrsta raka sada se može učinkovitije boriti, a veliki je napredak i u lečenju kardiovaskularnih bolesti. Čak ni potencijal cijepljenja, koja su spasila nebrojene živote od svog izuma, još nije iscrpljen. Injekcija koja štiti od infekcije HIV-om na rubu je otkrića.

 

4. Sve više ljudi zna čitati i pisati

 

Ova krivulja je također usmjerena strmo prema gore: sve više i više ljudi diljem sveta uživa u školskom obrazovanju. Godine 1900. samo je jedan od pet ljudi u svijetu znao čitati i pisati; danas gotovo devet od deset ljudi zna čitati i pisati.

Dina Pomeranz kaže da je situacija čak i bolja nego što ovi podaci na prvi pogled sugeriraju. “Mnogi od onih koji se i danas u statistikama pojavljuju kao nepismeni pripadaju starijoj generaciji. Na primjer, dok u mnogim afričkim zemljama manje od 30 posto ljudi starijih od 65 godina zna čitati i pisati, među mladom generacijom između 15 i 24 godine u istim zemljama to je često više od 80 posto.

 

5. Žene više nisu građani drugog reda

 

Prema Pomeranzi, vjerojatno je ljudska priroda da se brzo prilagođava napretku. U skladu s tim, ponekad se zaboravlja koliko su se prava žena i prava manjina brzo razvila na mnogim mestima tijekom proteklih desetljeća: „Mojoj majci 1960-ih nije bilo dopušteno da ide u srednju školu u središnjoj Švajcarskoj jer je bila djevojčica. Generaciju kasnije postala sam profesorica. Puno toga se već promenilo.”

Te se promjene mogu vidjeti i u politici: 1990. godine 9 posto zastupničkih mjesta u svijetu držale su žene, 2023. godine bilo ih je 26 posto. U Švajcarskom nacionalnom veću udio je u istom razdoblju porastao sa 14,5 na 38,5 posto. U većini zemalja danas žene imaju – barem na papiru – ista imovinska prava kao i muškarci.

Pravni i društveni položaj seksualnih manjina također se poboljšao. Brak istospolnih parova moguć je u sve više zemalja. Dok je Nizozemska započela 2001., brak je za sve u Švajcarskoj stupio na snagu 2022.

Pomeranz kaže: “Možda ćete saznati kasno. I – kao u svim područjima – ima još puno prostora za napredak. Ali također je činjenica: milijarde ljudi mogu živjeti slobodnije i ravnopravnije zahvaljujući postignućima u oblasti ljudskih prava.”

 

6. Ne očajavajte zbog klimatske krize

 

Blede li pomaci u područjima smanjenja siromaštva, jednakosti i obrazovanja kada postoji opasnost koja je veća od svega drugoga - globalno zatopljenje? Dina Pomeranz se mršti: “Da, klimatska kriza zapravo predstavlja vrlo veliki izazov za čovječanstvo, ali znamo mnoga moguća rješenja. Pitanje je: hoćemo li mi ljudi to implementirati na vreme?"

Što brže naše gospodarstvo i društvo dostignu neto nulti cilj za stakleničke gasove, šteta će biti manja. Ekonomistica ističe da je ekspanzija alternativnih energija u posljednje vreme dobro napredovala. "Cena solarnih panela, primerice, dramatično je pala - s više od 120 USD po vatu 1975. na 0,3 USD 2023. A cena još uvek pada svake godine."

Udio energije vjetra, vode i sunca u ukupnoj proizvodnji energije trenutno je u stalnom porastu. Osim političkih mjera, tu su i ekonomski razlozi, kaže Pomeranz, i to je dobra vest: “Ako odjednom postane jedna od najjeftinijih opcija za proizvodnju električne energije korištenjem solarne energije i energije vetra, onda firme i potrošači imaju sve razloge da to prihvate. put – bez obzira na njihovu političku ideologiju.”

Ekonomistica smatra kontraproduktivnom retoriku koja prevladava u pojedinim delovima klimatskog pokreta. "Ako se stvori utisak da je svet osuđen na propast, to može dovesti do beznađa - a oni koji su beznadni više ne zagovaraju dobra rješenja." Važno je da se situacija shvati ozbiljno i da se brzo donose učinkovite odluke o ekonomskoj politici.

 

Šta možemo naučiti iz toga

Ankete pokazuju da mnogi ljudi situaciju u svijetu ocenjuju negativnije nego što ona zapravo jest. Pomeranz kaže da smo vjerojatno evolucijski uvetovani da snažnije reagiramo na opasnost nego na situacije koje nisu preteće. “Osim toga, pozitivni se događaji obično događaju polako i postojano, dok se loši događaji često događaju naglo.”

Potonji ima veću vrijednost novosti za medije i stoga je vjerojatnije da će stvoriti naslove. To bi moglo biti opasno. Ako mislimo da sve ide na gore, onda možemo postati cinični i beznadni – što može dovesti do pasivnosti, ali i ekstremizma.

Neosporno je da se trenutno suočavamo s brojnim velikim izazovima – posebice u geopolitičkom kontekstu i klimi. Dini Pomeranz također je važno naglasiti da svet ne postaje nužno ili automatski bolji. "Ali može biti ako radimo za to."

To zahtijeva predanost mnogih ljudi, u velikim i malim razmerima: "Bilo to u politici, znanosti, medijima, poslovanju ili u odnosima s drugim ljudima." Pogled na dugoročni razvoj može nas ohrabriti.

 

[Dragan]

Vakcinacija protiv malarije: Nova vakcina i početni signal za rutinske vakcinacije

Postoje dva zraka nade u borbi protiv malarije. SZO sada preporučuje još jednu vakcinu protiv malarije. A Kamerun je prva zemlja u kojoj su deca sada rutinski vakcinisana protiv malarije. SZO je već preporučila prvu vakcinu protiv malarije 2021. godine – dugo očekivani proboj u istraživanju vakcine protiv malarije.

 

Spoiler

Prekretnica u istraživanju malarije

Malarija je jedan od vodećih uzroka smrti dece mlađe od pet godina, sa 500.000 dece koja umiru svake godine od zarazne bolesti koju prenose komarci. Decenijama je istraživanje vakcinacije protiv malarije bilo neuspešno. Ali nedavno, prve vakcine protiv malarije su konačno dostupne. Zdravstveni stručnjaci širom sveta smatraju da su vakcine protiv malarije prekretnica u borbi protiv patogena malarije opasnih po život.

 

Der Malaria-Impfstoff Mosquirix (RTS,S/AS01)

Mnogi kandidati za vakcine su bili u trci tokom godina - ali jedna vakcina je bila prva koja je prošla kroz sve faze odobravanja vakcine. Vakcinu protiv malarije RTS, S / AS01 (skraćeno "RTS, S" i takođe poznatu pod imenom proizvoda "Moskuirik") razvila je britanska farmaceutska kompanija GlakoSmithKline (GSK). To je prva vakcina na svetu protiv parazitske bolesti kod ljudi. Vakcinacija ima za cilj da spreči tešku bolest malarije.

Moskuirik je rezultat decenija istraživanja i razvoja. Vakcina je efikasna protiv patogena malarije "Plasmodium falciparum" – najsmrtonosnijeg parazita malarije na svetu i najrasprostranjenijeg u Africi.

RTS,S/AS01 je preporučila Svetska zdravstvena organizacija (SZO) već 2016. godine – ali u početku samo na pilot bazi u tri afričke zemlje: U odabranim oblastima u Gani, Keniji i Malaviju, vakcina je trebalo da se koristi ciljano kako bi se saznalo više o efikasnosti nove vakcine i veoma pažljivo pratila njena upotreba. U tri zemlje, RTS,S su tada odobrile nacionalne vlasti, a od 2019. godine vakcina se tamo koristi u okviru pilot projekata. SZO je 2021. godine konačno preporučila Moskurik za široku upotrebu.

 

Četiri doze vakcine Moskuirik štite od malarije

Da bi se Moskuirik zaštitio od malarije, svakom detetu su potrebne četiri doze vakcine. Bebe primaju prve tri vakcine u prvoj godini života. Oko 24 meseca starosti, oni primaju poslednju vakcinaciju – booster vakcinaciju – kako bi osvežili svoju zaštitu od vakcinacije protiv malarije.

 

Efikasnost vakcine protiv malarije RTS, S / AS01 (Moskuirik)

Vakcina RTS, S je u višegodišnjoj pilot fazi dokazala da je sigurna i značajno efikasna. Da damo konkretnu cifru: Prema SZO, 30 odsto manje dece je umrlo od malarije u oblastima gde je korišćen Moskurik nego ranije. Ne samo da je smrtnost od malarije smanjena vakcinacijom: Među vakcinisanom decom, znatno manje dece je takođe imalo ozbiljan tok malarije ili su morali da se leče u bolnici.

 

Ovako dugo RTS, S / AS01 štiti od malarije

Vakcina protiv malarije RTS,S, koja je do sada odobrena, još uvek je veoma nova na tržištu. Trenutno, stoga još uvek nije moguće dati tačne brojke o tome koliko dugo traje efekat vakcinacije protiv malarije. Međutim, istraživanje se već sprovodi punom brzinom kako bi se saznalo. Ono što je sigurno je da efikasnost ne traje čitav život, već se vremenom smanjuje i mora se s vremena na vreme osvežiti.

 

Vakcinacija protiv Moskuirika kao deo pilot projekta

Na osnovu iskustva iz ovih pilot projekata, SZO je u oktobru 2021. godine izdala zvaničnu preporuku da se Mosquirix koristi šire – u zemljama sa umerenim do visokim prenosom parazita malarije P. falciparum. Preporuka SZO za Moskurik uključuje i decu.

Ubrzo nakon preporuke SZO, "Savez za vakcine Gavi" (skraćeno GAVI) odlučio je krajem 2021. godine da finansijski podrži širenje Moskuirika. GAVI je globalni savez za vakcine različitih partnera koji rade na tome da osiguraju da i ljudi u najsiromašnijim zemljama sveta dobiju vakcine. GAVI finansira programe vakcinacije i isporučuje vakcine. UNICEF je jedan od partnera u okviru GAVI Vaccine Alliance

Do kraja 2023. godine, RTS,S/Moskuirik se koristio isključivo u odabranim regionima tri zemlje Gane, Kenije i Malavija. SZO je 2019. godine pokrenula pilot projekte sa RTS,S u ovim zemljama i od tada koordinira sprovođenje vakcinacija i evaluaciju rezultata.

Više od 2 miliona dece sada je primilo najmanje jednu od potrebne četiri doze vakcine RTS, S / AS01 (od novembra 2023. godine). Pilot faza RTS,S će se nastaviti do kraja 2023. godine u gore navedene tri zemlje kako bi se bolje razumela dodata vrednost četvrte doze vakcine i kako bi se moglo izmeriti kako vakcinacija funkcioniše na duži rok. Količina vakcine protiv malarije treba da se još više poveća tokom ovog vremena.

 

Pokretanje rutinske vakcinacije protiv malarije: Prve vakcine za Kamerun

U novembru 2023. dogodio se istorijski trenutak: Kamerun je postao prva zemlja na svetu koja je primila vakcine protiv malarije za rutinsku vakcinaciju dece. UNICEF i partneri isporučili su oko 330.000 doza vakcine protiv malarije "RTS,S (Moskuirix)" u Jaounde, glavni grad Kameruna. Prva deca u Kamerunu uskoro će biti vakcinisana protiv malarije kao deo svojih standardnih vakcinacija.

Zašto je ovo tako veliki korak? Ranije se vakcina protiv malarije primenjivala samo u okviru pilot projekata u odabranim zemljama. Od sada, vakcina protiv malarije će se rutinski koristiti u sve više zemalja sa visokim rizikom od malarije i na taj način može zaštititi mnogo više dece od malarije nego ranije. Vakcinacija protiv malarije će stoga postati deo nacionalnih programa vakcinacije.

Sledeće zemlje koje će snabdevati UNICEF vakcinama protiv malarije biće Burkina Faso, Liberija, Niger i Sijera Leone.

 

To je ono što vakcina protiv malarije RTS,S trenutno košta

Trenutno doza RTS,S vakcine košta 9,30 evra (od februara 2023. godine, izvor: https://www.unicef.org/ ). Međutim, cena bi mogla naglo pasti u narednih nekoliko godina, jer se sada dodaje druga vakcina, R21 / Matrik-M (vidi odeljke ispod) i proizvodnja vakcina će se dodatno povećavati kao rezultat.

 

Velika potražnja za RTS,S – ali i dalje ograničena ponuda

Potražnja za vakcinom protiv malarije RTS,S je ogromna u regionima pogođenim malarijom. Posebno u afričkim zemljama, roditelji željno čekaju da budu u mogućnosti da vakcinišu svoju decu. Ali iako je proizvodnja RTS, S već pojačana, vakcina je još uvek daleko od toga da bude dostupna u dovoljnim količinama. Pored toga, mnoge zemlje nemaju finansijska sredstva za kupovinu vakcina u velikim količinama.

Ekonomski slabije zemlje stoga mogu da se prijave za podršku od GAVI Vaccine Alliance ako žele da ponude nove vakcine protiv malarije u svojoj zemlji. Najmanje 28 zemalja u Africi trenutno planira da uključi vakcinaciju protiv malarije u svoje nacionalne planove vakcinacije. 18 od ovih zemalja će dobiti tehničku i finansijsku podršku od GAVI (od novembra 2023).

 

Der Malaria-Impfstoff R21/Matrix-M

SZO preporučuje drugu vakcinu protiv malarije

U oktobru 2023. godine, Svetska zdravstvena organizacija (SZO) preporučila je vakcinu "R21 / Matrik-M" za profilaksu malarije. R21 je razvijen na Univerzitetu u Oksfordu i druga je vakcina protiv malarije koju preporučuje SZO. Takođe je efikasan protiv P. falciparum, najsmrtonosniji od parazita malarije, i inače je veoma sličan RTS,S vakcine.

 

R21 / Matrik-M: Efikasnost, cena i sledeći koraci

Dosadašnje studije SZO pokazuju da je ova vakcina takođe veoma bezbedna i efikasna. Na primer, preparat R21 je uspeo da smanji slučajeve malarije za oko 75% – prema SZO, dve vakcine R21 i RTS,S su stoga u rangu u pogledu njihove efikasnosti. Međutim, postoje razlike u ceni. Nova vakcina R21 koštaće manje od 4 dolara po dozi vakcine, što je manje od troškova RTS, S.

A šta je sledeće za R21? Trenutno je poslednja faza kliničkog ispitivanja još u toku, tokom koje će SZO ponovo detaljno ispitati efikasnost, bezbednost i kvalitet vakcine. Kada se ovaj poslednji korak završi – verovatno krajem 2023. ili početkom 2024. godine – Svetska zdravstvena organizacija će takođe preporučiti vakcinu za široku upotrebu. Proizvodnja doza vakcine R21 / Matrik M mogla bi početi već 2024. godine, a ubrzo nakon toga nova vakcina može se koristiti u širokom obimu.

Uzgred: Već sredinom aprila 2023. godine stigao je zanimljiv izveštaj iz Gane o R21. Nacionalni regulatorni organ Gane odlučio je da više ne čeka na preporuku SZO za R21, već da odobri vakcinu ranije zbog njene dobre efikasnosti i da je koristi u Gani.

 

 

Napredak? Za tri godine, lek za paralizovane ljude mogao bi biti spreman za tržište

Najveća studija sa povredama kičmene moždine do sada pokazuje ohrabrujuće rezultate.

Terapiju antitelima razvili su istraživači iz Ciriha.

 

Spoiler

Mediji ih često i rado slave: navodna otkrića i prekretnice u lečenju paraplegičara. Međutim, to su obično male studije sa nekoliko ili čak samo jednim pacijentom koji su daleko od moguće primene. 

Ovo je drugačije u trenutnoj publikaciji u časopisu Lancet Neurologi. Tamo, međunarodni istraživački tim izveštava o važnom međukoraku u terapiji koja bi mogla olakšati život mnogim paraplegičarima u ne tako dalekoj budućnosti. Radi se o lečenju antitelom koje blokira protein koji se zove Nogo u kičmenoj moždini i na taj način omogućava regeneraciju nervnih vlakana. Zasnovan je na decenijama detaljnog rada istraživača na čelu sa švajcarskim neuronaučnikom Martinom Schvabom i danas je najnapredniji terapijski pristup za paraplegičare.

Placebo kontrolisana studija sa skoro 130 pacijenata sprovedena je na 13 klinika u Švajcarskoj, Nemačkoj, Češkoj i Španiji. "To je najveća studija do sada koja pokazuje da kičmena moždina paraplegičara može da se regeneriše", kaže Armin Curt iz Univerzitetske bolnice Balgrist u Cirihu, koji je koinicirao i organizovao studiju. U preliminarnoj kliničkoj studiji već je pokazano da antitelo omogućava regeneraciju kod nekih paraplegičara.

 

Poboljšanje nezavisnosti u svakodnevnom životu

Učesnici studije, koji su bili paraplegičari zbog povrede kičmene moždine u predelu vrata, primili su antitelo ubrizgano direktno u kičmenu tečnost mesec dana nakon nesreće. Ne baš polovina njih je ubrizgana placebom. Nakon šest meseci rehabilitacijskog treninga, istraživači su testirali snagu u rukama i rukama, kao i sposobnost da se samostalno nose sa svakodnevnim zadacima, kao što su skidanje odeće, pranje, jelo ili odlazak u toalet. 

Studija je pokazala značajna poboljšanja: 60 odsto učesnika koji su primili punu terapiju postiglo je maksimalni nivo brige o sebi – dvostruko više nego sa placebom. "Veoma smo zadovoljni rezultatom, jer ova poboljšanja čine veliku razliku za one koji su pogođeni", kaže Martin Schvab. To znači da paraplegičari mogu da se nose sa svojim svakodnevnim životom bez pomoći ili sa ograničenom Spitek brigom. Pokretljivost i snaga u ruci ili ruci takođe su poboljšane u odnosu na kontrolnu grupu. Podaci takođe ukazuju na to da je takođe došlo do napretka u kontroli nogu.

Međutim, poboljšanja su se dogodila isključivo kod pacijenata sa nepotpunom paralizom. U ovim slučajevima, kičmena moždina je samo delimično prekinuta, što znači da su određeni osećaji i pokreti i dalje mogući ispod zahvaćenog područja. Međutim, regeneracija se ne čini mogućom kod potpuno paraplegičara. "Oni čine skoro polovinu svih pogođenih", kaže Curt. 

 

U nadi za lakše odobrenje

Takođe prijatno sa stanovišta autora studije: Komplikacije kao što su infekcije ili plućne embolije dogodile su se tokom lečenja, ali ne češće nego u placebo grupi. Takođe nije bilo povećanog bola ili grčeva u mišićima (spastičnost). "Sa takvom terapijom, koja povećava neuroplastičnost, takvi negativni sporedni efekti bi bili sasvim zamislivi", kaže Curt.   

Uprkos pozitivnoj oceni, autori priznaju da je ukupni rezultat studije mešovit. Budući da potpuno paraplegičari još nisu reagovali na tretman na dokaziv način, nikakav efekat se ne može dokazati kod svih učesnika studije. "Dobar rezultat za nepotpuno paralizovane je razvodnjen kao rezultat", kaže Martin Schvab. 

Naknadna studija koja je tek počela sada ima za cilj da to ispravi. Pored toga, treba testirati novo, poboljšano antitelo i, ako je moguće, primenjivati u većim dozama. "Videli smo da smo verovatno koristili prenisku koncentraciju", kaže Schvab. On veruje da će za tri godine biti dovoljno podataka za pregovore sa nadležnim organima. "Tada će postati jasno da li je potrebna još jedna velika, takozvana studija faze 3 ili ćemo dobiti olakšano odobrenje za retke bolesti."

Stručnjaci koji ne učestvuju i koji sprovode istraživanja na istu temu posebno hvale kvalitet publikacije i potvrđuju da su potrebne dodatne studije. Na primer, James David Guest sa Medicinskog fakulteta Univerziteta u Majamiju (SAD) kaže Nemačkom naučnom medijskom centru: "Što se tiče budućnosti anti-nogo terapije, ovi rezultati su ohrabrujući." Dalje studije bi se morale fokusirati na ljude sa nepotpunim povredama i mogle bi pokazati koji pacijenti imaju koristi od tretmana. 

Vinfried Mair, profesor emeritus na Medicinskom univerzitetu u Beču, piše na zahtev: "Da li Nogo antitela mogu značajno doprineti ukupnom ishodu rehabilitacijskih napora još uvek treba da se potvrdi daljim studijama." On naglašava da senzacionalna otkrića u oblasti rehabilitacije kičmene moždine nisu realno za očekivati. "Nažalost, obmanjujuća obećanja o uspehu iz pojedinačnih istraživačkih inicijativa i dalje se pojavljuju iznova i iznova, što nepravedno dovodi do lažnih nada od strane pacijenata." Autori oko Schvaba i Curta bi postavili pozitivan primjer u tom pogledu i opisali ono što je postignuto u svoj objektivnosti, bez pretjeranih obećanja za životne uslove pacijenata. 

 

Neuspeh zbog povlačenja Novartisa

Sada 75-godišnji neuroznanstvenik Martin Schvab istražuje molekule koji stimulišu rast živaca od 1970-ih. Godine 1990. uspeo je po prvi put da izazove povređena nervna vlakna centralnog nervnog sistema sisara da rastu blokirajući molekul koji u to vreme još nije bio okarakterisan antitelom. Njemu i njegovom timu trebalo je osam godina da izoluju ovaj faktor rasta u svom najčistijem obliku i krste ga Nogo. U 2000. godini, Švab je dekodirao sekvencu gena i započeo prve eksperimente na ljudima 2006. godine. 

Konačno, Novartis je doveden na brod i pokrenuta je velika studija pacijenata. Međutim, kompanija se tada povukla iz svih neuroistraživanja u 2013. godini, vraćajući napore Nogo za mnogo godina. Martin Schvab, zajedno sa Arminom Curtom, odlučio je da sam unapredi terapiju bez farmaceutske podrške. Njih dvoje su konačno došli do studije koja je sada objavljena, a koja je finansirana iz fondova EU i fondacije.

 

[Janne240]

Pozdravljam topik i želim sve najpozitivnije u ovoj Novoj 2025. sigurno, mic po mic, čvrsto i neizostavno izidjimo iz negative i ništavila, koja je obuzelo čitavu planetu i naše društvo.

 

Dobra vest je da udjosmo u 2025-tu prevalivši čitav prethodni put da bi smo ovog potonjeg 2. januara bili zdraviji, ako ne lepši i pametniji.

 

Čuvajmo i negujmo naše zdravlje, mentalno i telesno!

[Dragan]

O ovakvim ljudima se nazalost premalo cuje, najcesce kad umru. 😞

 

Njegova krv spasila je živote više od dva miliona beba

Australijanac Džejms Harison je decenijama spasavao bezbroj novorođenčadi svojom retkom krvnom plazmom. 

Sada je "čovek sa zlatnom rukom" umro u 88. godini.

 

Spoiler

Njegove donacije krvne plazme spasile su živote 2,4 miliona beba u poslednjih nekoliko decenija: Sada je Australijanac Džejms Harison umro u 88. godini, saopštila je njegova porodica u utorak.

Bivši zaposleni u državnoj železničkoj upravi poslednji put je zbrinut u staračkom domu u Novom Južnom Velsu, gde je umro.

Harisonova krvna plazma učinila ga je herojem za bezbroj roditelja. Sadržavao je retko antitelo zvano Anti-D, koje štiti nerođene bebe od takozvane hemolitičke bolesti, nekompatibilnosti krvne grupe.

U ovom slučaju, imuni sistem trudnice napada crvena krvna zrnca fetusa. Bolest se najčešće javlja kada je krvna grupa majke Rh negativna, a krvna grupa bebe Rh pozitivna. U Australiji postoji samo 200 anti-D donatora koji pomažu 45.000 majki i njihovim bebama svake godine.

 

Harison ima averziju prema iglama

Uprkos svojoj averziji prema iglama, Harison je donirao krv 1173 puta nakon svog 18. rođendana 1954. godine, sve dok nije morao da odustane od prakse 2018. godine u 81. godini.

"On je to uradio iz pravih razloga. Koliko god da je bio skroman, voleo je pažnju. Ali on to nikada ne bi uradio zbog pažnje ", rekao je njegov unuk Jarrod Mellovship.

Njegov deda je bio iznenađen kada ga je Ginisova knjiga rekorda 2005. godine prepoznala kao osobu koja je donirala najviše krvne plazme na svetu. Ovaj rekord je oborio Amerikanac Brett Cooper 2022. godine.

Australijski Crveni krst odao je počast marljivom donatoru. Harison im je bio poznat kao "čovek sa zlatnom rukom", saopštila je služba za davanje krvi organizacije.

 

Harison je spasio 2,4 miliona beba

Kroz svoje donacije krvne plazme, Harison je spasio živote 2,4 miliona beba, rekao je nacionalni organ odgovoran za prikupljanje i distribuciju krvnih proizvoda, Lifeblood.

Izvršni direktor Lifeblood Stephen Cornelissen rekao je da se James Harrison nadao da će jednog dana neko u Australiji srušiti njegov rekord donacije.

Bio je izvanredan, stoički prijateljski i velikodušna osoba koja je osvojila srca mnogih ljudi širom sveta.

"Džejms je bio ubeđen da njegove donacije nisu važnije od onih drugih donatora i da svako može biti poseban na isti način kao i on", objasnio je Cornelissen.

 

Harison je takođe bio u stanju da pomogne svojoj ćerki

Džejms Harison je čak bio u stanju da pomogne svojoj ćerki. Mellovship je rekao da je njegovoj majci, Tracei Mellovship, bio potreban tretman anti-D antitela kada su se on i njegov brat Scott rodili.

Jarrod Mellovship je rekao da je njegova supruga Rebeka takođe primila tretman. Prednosti anti-D u borbi protiv hemolize kod novorođenčadi otkrivene su tek 60-ih godina.

Lekari su sumnjali da je Harison razvio visok nivo anti-D u svom telu u dobi od 14 godina zbog transfuzije krvi tokom velike operacije pluća. "Nakon operacije, njegov otac Reg rekao je dedi da je živ samo zato što su ljudi donirali krv", rekao je Jarrod Mellovship. "Onog dana kada je napunio 18 godina, počeo je da donira."

 

[Dragan]

How a young Dutchman wants to free the sea of plastic

Tons of plastic waste have been in the ocean for 60 years. Boyan Slat wants to get him out. Can that succeed? 

And is it possible to stop gigantic pollution?

 

Spoiler

On September 8, 2018, a ship of the Maersk shipping company left the Bay of San Francisco with an unusual mission: cleaning up the sea. The goal was a pile of garbage in the Pacific halfway between California and Hawaii. The world's oceans are full of plastic, but nowhere is there as much of it as in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - the big Pacific garbage carpet. There are rubbish from North America, South America and Asia on an area about three times as large as France. It is driven together by the Northern Pacific vertebrae, a sea surface flow that is clockwise over the North Pacific.

How much plastic circulates exactly in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can only be estimated. Gross calculations speak of at least 80,000 tons. Or 1.8 trillion plastic parts (a trillion are a thousand billions). If you look at all oceans together, the numbers are even more incredible: 86 to 150 million tons of plastic have been in the world's oceansaccumulated. 10 million tons are added every year. This is a truck charge per minute.

Pesticides, drugs, heavy metals: there are different pollutants that land in the sea. But plastic is the most common of all. And probably also the most devastating: At this conclusion, experts from the UN came. First of all, this is due to the longevity of plastic. It is an estimated four hundred and fifty years until a plastic bottle that we once used in the sea. So it is not surprising that objects from the 1960s were already found in the Pacific garbage carpet. And plastic does not disappear when it falls off. It becomes so -called microplastics. These are plastic parts with a diameter of less than five millimeters, possibly the most harmful form of existence of plastic.

 

Animals are the first victims: nobody knows the exact numbers, but it is likely that one million sea birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals perish annually. They get caught in thaw, swallow microplastics, confuse supermarket bags, toothbrushes and cell phone cases with food. Plastic causes a false feeling of satiety, clogs the digestive system and leads to internal injuries. In 2019, a young beak whale was found dead on the Philippines coast - with 40 kilos of plastic waste in the stomach. In 2018 it washed a sperm whale lifeless and out of grade to the Spanish coast - with 29 kilos of plastic waste in the stomach. Turtles, dolphins, seals: Everyone is affected. It is believed that there is hardly a sea creature that has no plastic in the stomach yet.

But people also suffer: microplastics have already been demonstrated in drinking water, in sea salt and in our blood. In the liver, the kidneys, the lungs, the intestine and even in theBreast milk. A few weeks ago, a study showed that the human brain today contains a disposable amount of plastic-50 percent more than eight years ago. One reason could be that plastic prefers to deposit in high-fat organs and overcomes the blood-brain barrier.

In the high mountains of the Pyrenees and the Rocky Mountains, tiny plastic particles were found, which had probably fallen with the rain. Chemical pollutants store on microplastics in the sea, but often plastic already contains pollutants, such as plasticizers and flame retardants. Fish, mussels and crustaceans take up all of this, it comes to us via the food chain.

Plastic waste dirty beaches and coasts that affects tourism and reduces fish stocks, which not only threatens the livelihood of fishermen, but also endangers the main protein source for billions. Coral reefs and other marine ecosystems are destroyed, which meansBiodiversity and the stability of the climate are negatively influenced.

One of the greatest concerns is that the microplasty's toxins are washed out during digestion and accumulate in animal and human tissue. Science is just beginning to deal with such dangers. If one speaks to researchers, they say that we are at the point in terms of plastic today when we were in climate change twenty years ago: you become well aware of the seriousness of the problem, but a lot is still unfortunate.

The matter of plastic pollution is that: it all concerns us all because it affects us all and we are all responsible for it. But none of us feel responsible because the catastrophe takes place in a room that does not belong to anyone: the wide sea.

 

But one felt addressed, a slim Dutch called Boyan Slat. When he stepped in front of the media in September 2018 in San Francisco, he worked at the end of the year with his twenty-four years, the long brown hair, the mirrored sunglasses and the freshly ironed blue shirt like a bachelor student. Singing off a ship to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was his idea. Very few believed that it could work. From the deck of an accompanying boat, Slat watched together with journalists, as the ship of the Maersk shipping company left the port. He was exhausted and nervous, but he didn't want to show that. He had worked for this day for five years, nothing was allowed to go wrong. He leaned against the railing casually, was interviewed and photographed.

 

His non-profit company The Ocean Cleanup had collected about forty million dollars until then. The funds came from charitable foundations, the Dutch government and Silicon-Valley billionaires such as Peter Thiel and Marc Benioff, but also from small donors. At the media conference, Slat said: "Humanity has been throwing plastic into the oceans for sixty years - we will get it out of today." A sentence made for the history books. Provided that Slat would be successful. In the first few weeks everything went according to plan. The ship reached the garbage carpet and the crew exposed the cleaning system. The engineers of The Ocean Cleanup gave him the simple name System 001, but the crew called it lovingly Wilson - based on the volleyball in the film Cast Away with Tom Hanks, which is lost in a storm.

Wilson was a 600 meter long, floating barrier in U-shape. At its lower end there was oneArt carpet attached that reached three meters into the depth. The system was designed in such a way that the plastic parts were led to the middle of the barrier, where they only needed to collect them. From above Wilson looked like a huge Pac-Man who eats through the trash.

 

The ingenious - or: supposedly brilliant - was that Wilson did not have to be pulled or controlled, but drove through the oceans, worn by wind, waves and currents. Apart from the diesel consumption of the transport ship, which brought the garbage back ashore, it seemed to be an ecologically flawless and, despite the crazy dimension of cleaning up, even affordable solution. Because Boyan Slat becomes seasick during the slightest waves, he did not take the trip to the garbage carpet. He pursued Wilson's progress from The Ocean Cleanup's headquarters in the Dutch university town of Delft. The company had grown to eighty employees in the five years since it was founded and stood before moving to downtown Rotterdam.

Wilson drove undisturbed through the North Pacific for four months. Then suddenly not: shortly before Christmas, the barrier broke apart, an 18 meter long section loosened. But that wasNot the only bad news. The calculations, according to which the current would rinse the plastic waste in the mouth of the PAC man, had turned out to be wrong. Wilson was a trash can that didn't contain any garbage at all. Or at least far too little that the effort would have been worth it.

And he was also a broken trash can. On January 17, 2019, the crew broke off and went ashore in Hawaii. Slat was desperate, as he says to me during a long conversation in Rotterdam in autumn 2024: "We really thought it would work."

 

The media spoke of a letdown. Before the project began, they had celebrated Boyan Slat as Messiah, now they dropped him. He was most hard the hardest in the "Washington Post": "Experts warned that this floating garbage collector would not work. The ocean agreed. » He irritated him how easy it was to talk to some people, just to talk badly just because the first attempt had failed. "Don't they know that innovation is exactly the same?" He asked himself. You try something, fail, learn from it, repeat it and get something that works. Boyan Slat also suspected that nothing works less in the media than corrections. And he didn't want to justify himself either, he wanted to continue working. In the meantime, even at The Ocean Cleanup, everyone no longer believed in the idea. Clean up a garbage carpet that is three times as big as France - how could you just trust yourself?!

Slatfelt skepticism. He and the team set a new goal: in four months he wanted to go back to the Pacific with the further development of System 001. His name? System 001/b.

 

Boyan Slat: problem solver, not environmentalist
A sixteen -year -old sees more plastic than fish while snorkeling and starts changing the world.
Every story begins with a question. Boyan Slat's story started with this: Why don't we manage to keep the ocean clean?

We know the answer: because we are humans. We enjoy the advantages of plastic, but when it comes to the consequences, the convenience wins. Instead of consistently recycling or using alternatives, we accept the pollution of the oceans.

The special thing about Boyan Slat is that he was not satisfied with this answer.

He was sixteen when he saw more plastic bags than fish while snorkeling off the Greek coast. Back in school, he began to read in the problem of plastic pollution. Together with his mother, a city guide, he lived in Delft near the Dutch North Sea coast (his father, painter by profession, lived in Croatia).Boyan Slat had always been an outsider, a child who put his head in books and behaved older than it was. A loner, a inventor, a nerd. In a way, he is still today.

"I'm curious," he says to me at our meeting at the headquarters of The Ocean Cleanup in Rotterdam. «More than that, I am obsessive. If I am convinced of an idea, I want to implement it. »

His schedule is so dense that my interview with him has been appointed months in advance. Now he is delayed easily - he comes back from a trip abroad - why his assistant makes me wait in the lounge of The Ocean Cleanup. In a faceless office building on a busy roundabout, the company occupies several floors. In the meantime, it employs sixty -free employees.

When Boyan Slat arrives, I don't notice it at first, a huge painting on the wall captivated me so much. It shows a sea in manyColors. I have the impression not only to see the surface, but to be able to look many thousand meters deep to the sea floor. Slat stands next to me and says: "You can get lost in it, don't you?"

The painting, he explains to me, consists of twenty layers of acrylic paint and six layers of fine oils for sealing and consolidation. It comes from a young Dutch artist named Joshua van Leader who worked on it for a year. In November 2022, not long after completion, he committed suicide, whereupon the painting The Ocean Cleanup was being bequeathed.

The artist called it "thalassophile", from the Greek thalassa, which means "sea". "Thalassophile" can perhaps be described as "devotion to the sea". Van Leader once said: "It is the perfect word to describe me, someone who loves the ocean."

 

A lover of the sea is also Boyan Slat. But that's not the reason why he has taken on plastic pollution. The reason is that the challenge irritates him. Boyan Slat is not an environmentalist, he is a problem solver. We come to Hans Rosling, the deceased Swedish doctor and author of the bestseller "Factuality", who described himself as a "Possibilist", a word creation of optimist and possible. This means that SLAT can identify. «I am not so naive to believe that things are good on their own. But I think you can get well when we strive. »

I ask him which message he would print on a poster if he could. He thinks for a long time. "Do not protest against things that do not agree with, but work towards a future with which you agree," he says. And explains what he means: «If you look at environmental protection, there is a tripleNegation. Environmentalists are negative in the way they think about the future. Not all, but many believe that the earth is coming to an end. Second, they believe that fear is the way to move the masses. And thirdly, their methods are also negative. They are against fossil fuels. They focus on the things that are bad, not on the things that are good. »

I look at the painting again and have to think of my own obsession with the sea. The calm that triggers it in me, but also the joy that it gives my children. The sea is there for everyone, I think. Slat continues:

«I would never have started with The Ocean Cleanup if I would believe that everything is pointless and we are lost anyway. And I wonder whether movements like Fridays for future in the world really bring more good things than bad - or whether they may not lead to more indifference to the problem. It's not like thatThat we didn't know how bad the climate is. It is more like the inspiration is missing. Young people need inspiration to do something. But you can't find inspiration in the negative, you can find them in a positive way. »

 

Slat was eighteen when he introduced his solution to plastic waste - or what he thought was the solution at the time - for the first time. That was in 2012, two years after the snorkeling trip in Greece. He had completed the school and now studied aerospace technology. He gave his presentation as part of a TEDX conference. It was all over the world, a platform for innovative and inspiring ideas. One of the conditions: quickly get to the point. That could. And he could do more. Here was one who was not about naming, but about solving problems. The people were thrilled. Slat did not appeal to the plastic industry (although he later repeated enough later that a lot has to happen in this regard), but announced a cleanup. That was his promise. It was a tempting promise. Cleaning up means that you do something. There is a good feeling. ManMakes the world better without having to forego something.

The 600 -meter -long barrier, which was dragged in the Pacific garbage carpet as a system 001 six years later - in September 2018 - had not much in common with the initial idea about the technical details. Except for the basic idea: take advantage of the sea currents. But then it was shown that it didn't even work properly. When The Ocean Cleanup's crew went land with hanging heads in Hawaii, the company was almost broke. But Slat knew that the moment was not to ask investors for new money. The hype had been dilated, the attempt failed.

How did he manage that The Ocean Cleanup became a success despite this history of failure?

In Rotterdam we are now sitting in a meeting room. Slats assistant brings salad, vegetables and quinoa from the buffet. Shortly afterwards she drops over again and admonishes him to something tooTo take (I already have half of my plate). But Slat continues without a break. "The problem with innovation is that new ideas are very fragile," he says. «From a thousand young people who try something, nine hundred nine -nine fails. Not because the idea would be bad. But because they can be discouraged by the critical voices after the first setback or no longer bring enough capital together. »

 

Boyan Slat is different. He stayed there. He thinks of The Ocean Cleanup when he wakes up in the morning, and when he goes to bed in the evening, he still thinks of The Ocean Cleanup. He treats himself to twenty minutes per day: to read a few pages in a book before falling asleep. The thing that Boyan Slat is working is too big that he wants to allow himself to spend time with something else. He broke off his studies in aerospace technology after the first semester. He is the only member of his research team without a higher degree. Some scientists who he hire are initially skeptical whether he has grown to the matter. But the doubts quickly lie down.

The Swiss Matthias Egger tells me, one of The Ocean Cleanup's chief scientists since 2018. He says: «Boyan has the amazing ability to think of both very small and very big. You can use it to have detailed conversations about technicalLeading subtleties, he knows about everything, has read every scientific work - but he can also convince politicians and business people of his vision. »

Egger estimates something else about Slat: his pragmatism. "This is typical of Dutchman," he says. «You always think of a solution. You are aware that your idea may not be perfect. But they tell themselves: If one does not suit you, you have to do something about it. Because if you don't do anything about it, you can't whine. »

So it was in January 2019. Slat told his people that they should ignore the critics. He thought it was easy, thought Matthias Egger. Most criticism came directly from the science community. He often knew those who expressed themselves negatively.

«The problem at the beginning of a project is that you hardly distinguish an idea that will work, hardly from an idea that will not workcan », Slat tells me in Rotterdam. “The idea that leads to great success and the idea that ends in a complete failure basically sounds the same. It makes it so difficult to find out that is the right one. »

He's not yet finished.

«I wondered: Who actually criticizes the critics? It was like they had a license. They could say what they wanted. They had no obligation. Nobody goes back to them today and asks them what they are now thinking about The Ocean Cleanup. »

In June 2019, another ship of the Maersk shipping company took course on the Pacific garbage carpet. This time from Vancouver Island. In its towing mue: System 001/B, the further development of System 001.

In July 2019, the crew succeeded: two large sacks full of garbage pulled it out of the water, including centimeters' plastic parts, but also bulky canister. It was a special moment far outside in nothing, two thousand nautical miles from the next coast. When the sacks were on board, the crew gathered and started to rummage through the garbage almost devoutly, men in mirrored sunglasses and bright safety vests. Someone filmed everything. You looked at the relief for people: it worked.

Shortly afterwards, Boyan Slat also learned about it. And then it didn't take long until it was clear that that would not be enough. System 001/b was no success, just a start. Because slowly as it collected garbage, it would have been seven hundred or even eight hundred of such barriers to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Slat wondered: "Why don't we just pull the system with ships ourselves?" It was the moment when he also said goodbye to the last detail of his original idea: the idea that you could collect garbage passively. But right is not important to him. He doesn't have to be right. He wants to do the right thing.

 

A short story of the plastic
Cheap, practical, devilish: the invention of the plastic was only a blessing, then a curse.
Anyone who deals with the pollution of the world's oceans for a while can hardly see plastic as something other than garbage. And yet there is a reason why we produce it in such quantities: plastic is awesome. It is light, robust, waterproof, durable. It is cheap in manufacturing and versatile. Plastic saves life and makes life easier, we build medical devices, planes, electric cars, clothing, toys and cosmetics. But it is precisely the properties that make plastic so valuable are a problem when it comes to disposal. Only 14 percent are recycled correctly worldwide. And a third, 32 percent, gets directly into the environment.

The dimensions are gigantic: We produce 400 million tons of plastic - 50 kilos per person every year, almost 40 percent more than ten years ago. And it is getting more and more. Three quarters of the plastic ever produced is now waste, often in the form of disposable packaging. If we continue, the amount of plastic waste will triple by 2060.

There was a time when you looked at this material very differently. Plastic was a promise. Not the beginning, but the end of all problems. The consumption age began with plastic after the Second World War, and the future was built on plastic. As early as 1941, two British chemists - Victor Yarsley and Edward Couzens - introduced themselves as we would one day live in the "plastic age". They wrote: "The 'plastic man' will come into a world full of colors and bright surfaces, a world in which people like a magician produce what he wants for almost every need.» They painted out how this person would grow up, surrounded by unbreakable toys, rounded corners, indestructible walls, dirt -repellent fabrics and light cars. The humiliations of age would be alleviated by plastic glasses and prostheses until it dies, whereupon it is buried "hygienically enclosed in a plastic coffin".

On Yarsley, Couzens and hersI pour plastic people in the excellent book “Plastic: A toxic Love Story” by the author Susan Freinkel. I am amazed at how exactly the prophecy of the two chemists was. Except for one detail: the problems. They didn't see them. They thought plastic would democratize the world. And in a cynical way it even voted: plastic was soon everywhere - even in the poorest areas in the world.

But this is exactly what the largest part of marine pollution. Rich countries produce much more plastic waste per person than poor countries. But in rich countries, this garbage is largely burned, recycled or brought to well -guided landfolter, while countries with low to medium average income are difficult.

If you look at the plastic waste that is incorrectly disposed of per capita - this includes materials that are burned in open pits, tilted into seas or open water or disposed of on unsanitary landfolter and garbage dumps - Brazil lies ahead of Gambia, India, China and Morocco. This was the result of a study published in 2021 in the specialist magazine “Science Advances”. The following figures also come from there: At 65 percent, Asia is by far the largest cause of improper plastic waste by far, followed by Africa (22 percent) and South America (8 percent). Comparatively successful waste management is operated in North America, Europe and Oceania, the three continents together are only responsible for almost 5 percent of the incorrectly disposed plastic waste.

Maybe it's a bit late to ask that now, but better late than never: what is plastic at all? When we speak of plastic, we actually mean plastic. This is a material that does not exist in nature, but it is artificially manufactured from fabrics that exist in nature. Especially from a fabric, you have to say: oil.

Petroleum is a natural fabric. It is made of organic material and has been stored deeply in the earth for millions of years. When it is pumped and distilled from the earth, you get the precious gasoline. The heavier components are converted using cracking and by adding chemicals into ethylene, propylene and other compounds - the raw materials of the plastic.

The discovery of the plastic is a little more than a hundred years ago. In 1907 the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland experimented with the fabrics phenol and formaldehyde and found that in an exothermic reaction-if more energyis released as to be added - become an synthetic resin. A dark colored, robust material was created: bakelite. It was the first really synthetic plastic and replaced the shellac in certain areas, a resin that was separated and used in the early 20th century for electrical insulation.

Plastic only had its breakthrough in the middle of the last century. During the Second World War, the new plastics were still monopolized by the military, now the huge production potential had to go somewhere. A few months after the end of the war, thousands of people stood in line at a plastic fair in New York to look at the new promises. "Nothing can stop plastics!", The organizer called to the people. [Read a contribution to the triumphal march of plastic here.]

That's right!, Boyan Slat could have called back decades later when he was more often on pictures of the Great Pacific Garbage between July and October 2021Patch looked because the latest development of The Ocean Cleanup was tested there: System 002, called Jenny, like the boat in “Forrest Gump”, another Tom Hanks film.

At that time, Slat had been working on nothing else for eight years, a third of his life, and yet his garbage swallow had only collected 7,300 kilos of garbage. This corresponds to 0.0091 percent all garbage that swims in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. "Pretty depressing," found Slat.

 

The Swiss on Boyan Slats page
An environmental scientist from the Appenzellerland who not only wanted to understand environmental problems, but also wanted to solve.
When Matthias Egger went out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for the first time, he already knew that the claim that the garbage carpet was even visible was not right. And yet he was amazed when he looked around and first saw: nothing. He looked more closely. Then, even from the deck, he also recognized it ten meters above the water. Something drove past every few minutes: an umbrella grip, a laundry basket, a toy gun. As soon as he had seen the first object, he noticed more and more as far as the eye reached. He started to expect. What did that mean for the entire area that is three times as big as France? He became dizzy.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a garbage carpet in the literal sense. It does not drive there across the board, but there is a lot of garbage there - more than somewhere else in the world's oceans. If you look at the weight of the garbage (at least 80,000 tons), the large, clearly visible objects make up 92 percent. If it is about the amount, it is the other way around: 97 percent of the 1.8 trillion parts are microplastics, less than half a centimeter, at most recognizable if you let the dinghy to water, as Egger then did. When he got on board, he saw countless white dots around him. Like a starry sky, he thought.

As an environmental scientist, Egger had often drove to sea at The Ocean Cleanup before his time. Weekly expeditions led him through the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the North Atlantic and through the Black Sea. He loved these trips on the open sea, the sixteen to twenty-hour working days. He enjoyed being surrounded by water, accompanied by dolphins, whales, sharks and turtles. But this was something else. In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, he no longer examined marine ecosystems or climate phenomena. He researched garbage. He was in the North Pacific for two months at the end of 2018, and another month followed at the end of 2019. He collected data to support The Ocean Cleanup in eliminating the garbage carpet. So far from civilization that nobody was closer to him and his crew than the astronauts of the ISS, hundreds of kilometers above them in orbit.

Egger grew up in Appenzellerland, then lived in the Netherlands and Denmark for ten years, now lives in St. Gallen with his family. Everything in his life indicated that he would have a steep career at the university. But then he got out - shortly after the doctorate. On his research trips, he had had to see how the condition of the seas worsened year after year. "Of course, it is important to continue to examine the negative effects of our human action on the oceans," he says to me at a meeting in a St. Galler Café at a meeting at the end of 2024. "But for me personally it was no longer right, I wanted to understand the problems, but I wanted to contribute even more to a solution." The story of The Ocean Cleanup is also a history of the relationship between theory and practice. As SLAT started, there were countless theoretical calculations and modeling on currents, wind speeds and plastic waste. ButSlat and Egger quickly realized that reality was more complicated than the models.

In Rotterdam, Boyan Slat tells me: «You often hear that ten million tons of plastic waste end up in the sea every year. And then you go to the sea and try to find this garbage. But you can't find it. Or somewhere else when you thought. »

So there is a discrepancy between model and reality. Again Slat: "If you try to solve a problem, you shouldn't just pretend that the model is reality." The model is not the reality, it is an approximation to reality. The two can be similar, but they are never identical. And at the same time, both are needed: a theory to approach the problem at all, and a practice to check the theory. And, at best, to solve the problem.

And then came system 002. Jenny. That was in the summer of 2021. The biggest innovation was that now an active instead of a passive oneDrive system was used. Jenny did not drive as wilson through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but was drawn by one ship at both ends of the barrier. In this way, the system could be moved faster than the plastic current, and it was easier to maintain a stable speed difference to plastic.

However, it remained complicated. Critics had concerns that not only plastic, but also fish and other living things were catching. So Slat wanted to be particularly careful. The first test was ended after two hours, then the catch was examined: 100 kilos of plastic waste, barely by -catch. Slat calculated high: If you were working around the clock, you would get 1200 kilos or 1.2 tons a day. That is exactly what he had hoped for from a system of this size. The criticism of those who fear that the clean -up campaigns of The Ocean Cleanup could cost countless animals that have not been fully silent, even if the numbers have long refuted them.

First, according to Matthias Egger, it has been shown that the by -catching quota is much lower than that of fishing, where half of the prisoners are often unsuitable for consumption. At The Ocean Cleanup, 99.7 percent of the fishing amount in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually existsPlastic.

Secondly, 80 percent of the living beings collected are invasive species, i.e. those that don't actually belong there: crabs, soft corals, lichen.

Third, the garbage carpet is a threat to one of the largest sea protection areas in the world - the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument before Hawaii. Over 1.5 million square kilometers, it offers an incredible variety of corals, fishing, birds, marine mugs and other plants and animals. The more plastic is removed from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the less it gets into the sea protection area.

Fourth, the negative effects of plastic on marine life are proven to be larger than the possible effects of clean -up actions.

Another test dragged on for two days. At home in Rotterdam, Slat woke up on the morning of the third day and looked at his cell phone. He had missed dozens of calls. He opened WhatsApp - and there wasThis photo. "I still get goose bumps today when I think about it," he says. There was a huge bunch of plastic on the deck of the ship that collected the garbage. A multiple more than 100 kilos - the SLAT recognized immediately. It wasn't pleasure what he felt. It was relief: Jenny worked.

But Slat and Egger also realized that the garbage carpet is not as homogeneous as the models calculated it. Even here, in this largest garbage dump in the world, there is not the same amount of garbage everywhere. If they wanted to work efficiently, they had to react flexibly and follow the garbage. So they developed computers and models that helped them identify areas with particularly high plastic density - and lead Jenny there.

The first trip lasted six weeks in the summer of 2021, then returned to Vancouver Island and a new crew took over. When Jenny was used for the last time in the summer of 2023, they had 282,787 kilos or a little morefished out of the sea as 282 tons of plastic waste. That was significantly more than the 7300 kilos with Wilson. But it was still far too little if you wanted to remove the whole garbage carpet. You needed more Jennys. And larger.

Jenny's successor is called Josh, named after the boy in the Tom Hanks film "Big", who suddenly lives in an adult body as a child. That fits. Because System 03 - with only one zero! - is greater than the previous. The System 001 barrier was 600 meters long, which was extended by System 002 over two years from 800 to 1600 meters. System 03/Josh barrier measures 2500 meters and does not reach three, but four meters.

Josh, that can already be said, is a success. When the system was brought to the port of the Canadian city of Victoria in October 2024 to subject it to a general overhaul, the entire catch was almost doubled within a year - to almost 500 tons. Compared to the total amount of garbage that swims in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, this is still very little: not even one percent. But you could also say that almost one percent of the problem has already been solved.

 

The problem behind the problem
Rivers are the arteries that transport the plastic into the sea. How can you clean them?
In order to understand how this initial (and years of) history of failure could become one of the most inspiring environmental initiatives in general, we have to look back again. On October 27, 2019, Boyan Slat entered a workshop illuminated with headlights in the port of Rotterdam, turned to the audience and said solemnly: two things were necessary to get the ocean clean. First capture the plastic waste. Secondly, make sure that no new plastic waste gets in.

"We don't want to be the garbage men of the sea, even though that would be a profitable business model," said Slat. «Our goal is to push ourselves out of business. That is why we started a secret side project four years ago to find a solution to the other side of the equation. You know how we the first part of the taskwant to approach. Now I will show you what our plan looks like for the second part. »

A curtain was ventilated behind him, and the view fell onto the harbor basin, in which a little swam that looked like a ship. It was called "Interceptor", which can be translated with "interceptors", and should do exactly that: intercept plastic waste before getting into the sea.

Five years later in the Ocean Cleanup meeting room: Boyan Slat still hasn't touched his lunch (while I wonder if there may be dessert). He remembers the presentation of the Interceptor, from which you can find countless videos on YouTube today because it inspired so many people. And he tells how he feared that The Ocean Cleanup's credibility would suffer if he made a new promise, while not even the system for cleaning the Pacific garbage carpet properly worked. Hence the confidentiality. But now he did everything he could to impress the audience. Until in five years, he announced that the interceptors would be in a thousand rivers. Rivers are "the arteries that transport the garbage from the country into the sea". A vacuum cleaner for the rivers - as Slat called the Interceptor. And as easy as with a vacuum cleaner, the disposal of the garbage should also workThe only step that had to be done by human hands with the otherwise autonomously working and solar energy.

Slat asked the audience to take a closer look at the interceptor in the workshop. The digits 001 were not emblazoned on the side, as you could have expected. Stand: 004. Slat smiled. «You know what that means, right? That three systems are already in use. » Then three broadcasts were recorded - from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam. An interceptor already did his work everywhere. You could see what Slat had previously demonstrated in the workshop with thousands of little squeakers: that the interceptor also worked in nature. A barrier caught the rubber -flooded garbage and passed it on to the Interceptor, where he was lifted out of the water by a assembly ligament and then promoted to one of six containers. It has something deeply soothing to watch how garbage is collected, which would otherwise simply be washed into the sea. Especially when you know what otherwise looks like in these rivers. There is not every few minutes like in the GreatPacific Garbage Patch A larger plastic object over - in many places you can hardly see the water from sheer garbage.

The presentation met with great interest, so that other models of the “vacuum cleaner” were soon put into operation. Interceptor 007, for example, was shipped to Los Angeles. Already after the first winter, the city administration announced that plastic waste on the beaches had reduced by 75 percent. But then it became complicated again - for the same reason that it had become complicated in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: because problems appeared in reality that had not been taken into account in the modeling.

For a long time, for example, it was assumed that the longest rivers also carry most plastic waste into the sea - especially if they flow through large and densely populated areas with bad waste management. So Amazonas, Nil, Mekong, Ganges or Yangtse. In 2017, a study claimed that only 5 rivers are responsible for 80 percent of sea pollution. Another study from the same year came to 162 rivers.

Actually layBoth studies next to it. Not 5 and not 162 rivers are responsible for 80 percent of pollution, but 1656 rivers. "We were wrong," Slat told me. «The majority of pollution comes from small rivers in coastal cities in countries with medium incomes. We concentrated on the big rivers, but now understood that the garbage often does not reach the sea there because it is rinsed on the bank on the way. »

In 2021, a study confirmed the findings. Apart from the quality of the waste management, three factors particularly help to tear a lot of plastic with it: proximity to cities: large plastic quantities come from urban areas with many sealed areas that direct water and garbage directly into the rivers. Particularly small but heavily contaminated rivers in metropolises such as Jakarta or Manila contribute significantly to pollution.

Short distance: rivers that run close to a coast promote a lot of plasticinto the sea.

High precipitation: rain flushes plastic into the rivers and accelerates transport into the sea.

When Boyan Slat draws a small record with me in autumn 2024 - five years after the announcement in the workshop - not as hoped for a thousand interceptors. Not even five hundred. Not even a hundred. In these five years, only twenty -one -one interceptors have been put into operation.

It turned out that the interceptor concept is not applicable to all rivers. No river is like the other, everyone requires individual adjustments. Sometimes the width of the river represents a challenge, then the flow of flow or the sheer amount of waste. Some rivers transport so much garbage that it is more efficient to build a more robust barrier and get the waste with shovel excavators instead of first transporting it into the containers of an interceptor.

There are two ways to look at these setbacks. One could say that Slat failed because he remained far below his expectations. Or you could say that it is not setbacks, but findings. Slat has - albeit through detours - proved that it is possible to clean rivers. As he has proven that it is possible to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is associated with efforts and great effort, but it is possible. We just have to want it. The Ocean Cleanup leads exactly the book collected. We already know the almost 500 tons that you have fished out of the Pacific. But what about the rivers? In five years, says The Ocean Cleanup, more than 20,000 tons of waste was prevented from driving into the oceans.

 

An incredible number. An incredible success story. Despite the relativization that SLAT does in our balance sheet discussion. "You need to know," he says, "that you cannot compare a kilo that is removed from a river with a kilo that is removed from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Most of the waste that gets into the sea via a river does not stay there for very long. On average, 97 percent of this waste is washed back to the coast within one year. » In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, cleaning up since Josh was brought to the port of Victoria in autumn 2024. The engineers from The Ocean Cleanup have some ideas for further developments-especially with regard to the detection of plastic hotspots. Slat wants to give them time by the end of 2025.

The company has now published an estimate of how long it would take and how much it would cost, between 80 and 90 percent of theRemoving garbage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (100 percent will never be possible, that was always clear): ten years and almost seven billion francs.

Is that a lot? Is it little?

For comparison: Switzerland spends a good three billion francs annually for the disposal of all waste. If you look at it that way, the seven billion for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch would be very little.

The criticism that Boyan Slat hears most often is that he combat symptoms instead of causes. That his clean -up action distracts from the actual problem - namely that we produce too much plastic and do not dispose of the garbage in an environmentally friendly manner.

Slat does not deny that. He says: «If I could choose, I wouldn't even let the plastic waste go into the sea. But we are sixty years late for that. » He briefly thinks. «I consider what we do, not as a replacement for something else. I consider it as a supplement. And I don't think our work eitherPeople distract from the actual. On the contrary, I believe that we make people aware of it. Our experience is that wherever we install an interceptor, awareness of the plastic problem increases. »

Boyan Slat is not a dreamer. No moralist either. He is a pragmatist. In contrast to use in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch outside in the Pacific, where no one feels responsible for the garbage, he and his team never work on his own with their river system. It needs the will and financial resources of the local authorities.

Depending on the model, the acquisition costs for an interceptor amount to CHF 600,000 to CHF 700,000. The Ocean Cleanup takes over the installation and introduction, then the system is then handed over to the people on site who take care of the maintenance and above all the regular emptying of the containers.

In Kingston, Jamaica, you will soon have all urban tributaries to the Caribbean Sea withan interceptor. The hope is that this will massively reduce the plastic waste in the water. In Guatemala, one seems to have found a solution for the Río Motagua, one of the most dirty rivers in the world. The aim is to get the Gulf of Honduras, which is limited by the coasts of Belize, Honduras and Guatemala, completely free of plastic. And also in the Megacitys Jakarta and Mumbai, the city administrations are interested in cleanup campaigns with The Ocean Cleanup.

You are even further in Panama: the Bay of Panama is very endangered by plastic pollution. To relieve them, the seven most important rivers will get an interceptor.

However, the news that makes the most hope comes in early March. It shows how quickly it can suddenly go forward when you survive the time in which you fail, doubts, struggles. A record was recorded: 1,274,000 kilos of collected garbage since the beginning of the year. That's almostThree times as much as in January and February 2024.

Boyan Slat and The Ocean Cleanup do not solve our problem with the plastic. But it is possible to give humanity some time to look for a solution in the next few years.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dragan]

World's largest "desert-gobi-wasteland" wind-solar power base begins operations

 

Recently, the World's largest "desert-gobi-wasteland" wind-solar power base—The section 7 of the photovoltaic project at the Kubiqi Desert in central-northern Ordos, Inner Mongolia of China—achieved full-capacity grid connection 30 days ahead of schedule. The project was built by CSCEC and other companies.

 

Covering an area of approximately 30,000 mu (2,000 hectares), the section 7 alone is expected to generate around 3 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually. This will save approximately 410,000 tons of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.1 million tons each year. The project will enable large-scale development and high-percentage transmission of clean energy, fostering regional green growth and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon energy system.

 

Germany Takes a Giant Leap in Clean Energy!

In a major milestone for Europe’s green transition, Germany has unveiled the largest electrolyser on the continent. This advanced facility is capable of generating 8,000 metric tonnes of hydrogen per year, marking a significant step toward reducing carbon emissions and building a sustainable energy future.

Hydrogen is fast emerging as a key solution in the global push to replace fossil fuels. By using electrolysis—splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity—this plant offers a cleaner, more scalable way to produce green hydrogen.

Germany’s move not only strengthens its leadership in renewable energy innovation but also sets a strong example for other nations to follow.

This project is a powerful reminder that the future of energy is not only sustainable but also bright—and it’s already happening.

Edited May 19 by Dragan