On a Positive Note

Amidst the chaos, what are some good things in the world?

BY RYAN CHO ’25

MENDING HOLES

As of 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that the ozone layer’s hole will close by 2070. Since the United Nations signed into action the Montreal Protocol in 1987, the production of chemicals that created the hole in the ozone layer has been reduced by 50%. The NOAA has concluded using this data that the hole is shrinking every year, and with the current rate, it will be closed by 2070.

A CRASH TO SAVE THE EARTH

The Double-Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, was an experiment done by NASA to see if they were capable of redirecting an asteroid that could be heading toward Earth. DART is a spacecraft planned to hit Dimorphos, an asteroid orbiting around a bigger asteroid, Didymos. Starting on Nov. 24, 2021, the spacecraft successfully impacted Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022. Although the asteroid pair was not on its path to collide with Earth, this experiment shows that NASA is capable of handling such situations.

THE FIGHT AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S On June 7, 2021, the FDA approved the commercial selling of Aducanumab, a drug created by an American biotech company, Biogen. This drug is the first major step forward in the fight against Alzheimer’s, as the third trial showed that it slowed Alzheimer’s effect on the brain by 27%. The drug proves the hypothesis that the abnormal accumulation of amyloid in the brain is one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s disease. Some researchers say that amyloid is only a small component of Alzheimer’s; however, that does not mean it is ineffective, as it is the first drug since 2003 to slow Alzheimer’s effects successfully.

GRAPHIC BY CYNTHIA SONG ’ 24

CARBON CAPTURE

A partnership between a dozen airlines formed in order to fund a new carbon capture project. They teamed up with Carbon Engineering who are the pioneers of a new direct carbon capture technology that can cancel out enterprise levels of carbon emission. The benefits of this capture technology are that they can offset emissions from anywhere in the world at any time. The partnership agreed to negotiate the possible pre-order starting from 2025 to 2028. This means that the technology will be open to multiple airline companies, providing them with the opportunity to prevent more of their carbon emissions, and help them learn what they can do to produce less.