Taking Stock: Bang for your buck
Lethal fungi | Uruguay's beef exports | Climate-driven infectious diseases | Anti-social AI | Weighing the world's trees
Lethal fungi are becoming drug-resistant—and spreading—The Economist
New antifungals offer a glimmer of hope
‘For many people people, the looming threat of antimicrobial resistance has become synonymous with bacteria that can withstand antibiotics. That conflation makes sense. Bacterial infections kill almost 8m people a year, and most are associated with resistant bacteria. But in recent years another kind of microbe has displayed worrying levels of resistance: fungi.
‘Dangerous fungal infections are rising across the world, especially among the growing number of people with weak immune systems. These infections—systemic, lethal infestations of the body’s deep tissues and organs—have little in common with the inconveniences of everyday fungal pathogens such as athlete’s foot and ringworm. They are now responsible for an estimated 7m life-threatening infections and more than 2.5m deaths a year.
Like their bacterial counterparts, fungi are evolving resistance to the drugs that are meant to fight them. The good news is that more powerful classes of medicines are finally starting to emerge.
‘Although there are more than a dozen different types of antibiotics, there are currently only three main classes of antifungals: polyenes, azoles and echinocandins. Each attacks a different part of a fungus’s cell membrane or cell wall, protective structures that surround the fungal cell and without which it cannot survive. The last of these classes, the echinocandins, were introduced in the early 2000s and since then no new classes have been approved. Part of the reason is that fungi are much more closely related to animals than bacteria are: anything that kills a fungus may well kill the cells it has infected.
‘This limited arsenal is shrinking. Just like bacteria, fungi can evolve to withstand drugs through genetic mutations. . . .
Unfortunately pharmaceutical companies rarely see new antifungals as worth the investment. Not only will these drugs become ineffective in turn should resistance ever arise, but people take them only for short periods. That makes them less appealing than drugs taken continuously, such as statins.
Despite these hurdles, wholly new classes of antifungals are finally on the cusp of reaching the clinic.
‘. . . Should the new drugs pass muster, maintaining their lethality will be crucial. But the chance to do so may be slipping away. . . .
Fungicides also do life-saving work: fungal infections are the leading cause of crop failures, destroying up to 40% of the world’s annual harvest, the equivalent of food for 4bn people. Regulators consequently cannot just ask farmers to stop using fungicides or refuse to approve new ones.
‘“There is this really difficult balance between the need for food security and the need for protection of our [antifungals],” says Michael Bromley, a microbiologist from the University of Manchester.
‘The world needs more ways to kill fungi. Innovation might come from faster and cheaper genome sequencing, which allows scientists to search microbial genomes for genes that produce new antifungal compounds as well as find targets that exist in fungi but not in humans. Another potential avenue is to exploit the mycoviruses that infect fungi in nature. Just as viruses that infect bacteria can be used as natural antibiotics, some scientists think that mycoviruses could yield new antifungal therapies. They will need to come up with something, or the rot really will set in.’
economist.com | @TheEconomist
A surge in beef exports to China triggered widespread growth in Uruguay’s service sector—Francesco Amodio, Giorgio Chiovelli, and Serafín Frache
‘Over the past two decades, China's rapid industrialisation and rising middle class have transformed global trade patterns. While much attention has been paid to China's rise as a manufacturing export powerhouse . . . , its surging demand for commodities has had equally profound effects—especially on exporting countries in the Global South.
‘Many developing economies have witnessed a sharp increase in exports to China, concentrated in a few key commodities. . . . These dynamics are poised to intensify further as the US-China trade war escalates. As China shifts agri-food imports away from the US, new opportunities arise for alternative exporters in the developing world.
‘Uruguay, a South American country with a strong beef export capacity, provides a compelling case study. Between 2006 and 2019, Uruguay’s beef exports to China skyrocketed from USD$3.56 million to over USD$1.13 billion, making China the destination for approximately 60% of the country’s total beef exports. By 2019, beef exports to China alone accounted for 1.7% of Uruguay’s GDP, while exports to the rest of the world remained largely flat. . . .
‘[W]e find that a one standard deviation increase in indirect exposure to the China beef boom led to an 8% increase in total sales among suppliers. For service sector firms, the effect rises to 14%, with similarly strong gains in employment (+3%), wages (+3%), and sales per worker (+7%). These effects are especially pronounced among smaller firms, and among those in sectors such as retail, transportation, real estate, professional services, and ICT.
These findings suggest that trade booms can activate wide swaths of the domestic economy—not only through agricultural production, but also through the services that exporters rely on to grow.
‘These results demonstrate that the benefits of trade are not confined to exporters themselves. Rather, they ripple through the domestic economy, activating a wide network of upstream firms that supply exporters with the goods and services they need to operate and expand. Moreover, we find evidence of second-order effects: firms that supply the suppliers of beef exporters also experienced growth, particularly those in service industries such as IT, transportation, and professional services. In the case of Uruguay’s beef boom, this ripple effect was not only sizable—it was transformative, especially for the country's service sector. . . .
‘Uruguay’s experience offers important lessons for other commodity-exporting countries—particularly at a time when global trade patterns are being reshaped. The US-China trade war and China’s efforts to diversify away from US agri-food imports create opportunities for alternative suppliers. Countries like Uruguay stand to benefit from these shifts, but realising the full potential of such trade opportunities requires deliberate policy efforts to ensure that gains are realised. . . .’
Our findings show that, under the right conditions, commodity export booms can generate wide-ranging benefits, catalysing growth not only in the export sector but also across a dense network of domestic service providers.
voxdev.org | @vox_dev | @GChiovelli
Graphic by Bhabna Banerjee, Inside Climate News.
How a changing climate is reshaping the spread of infectious diseases—Bhabna Banerjee
As global temperatures rise, the spread of infectious diseases is rapidly evolving in unexpected ways.
[Angelle Desiree LaBeaud] spoke with Inside Climate News about the overlooked links between climate, vector-borne illness and health equity—and why localized, community-driven solutions are essential in a more unpredictable world. . . .
Climate change is often discussed in terms of rising temperatures and extreme weather, but its impact on human health—especially infectious diseases—is less widely understood.
‘. . . When it comes to waterborne and foodborne diseases, the link to climate change is even more direct [than the link to respiratory diseases]. As temperatures rise, you create more favorable conditions for bacteria and other pathogens to multiply. They thrive in warm environments—soil, water, contaminated areas—so warming can increase their abundance. . . .
‘[V]accines are definitely a promising direction. But I also keep coming back to what we’ve been talking about: community-level work. I really believe there’s so much more we can do locally. Cleaning up the environment, educating people so they understand why they’re doing it and creating a sense of collective responsibility—those efforts go a long way.
‘And it’s a win-win for health. When you clean up your environment, you’re not just reducing mosquito breeding sites and vector-borne disease, you’re also likely reducing things like rodent infestations and food and waterborne illnesses in the neighborhood. It’s not just protection against dengue; it’s protection against everything Aedes aegypti can carry, and beyond. There’s a lot of bang for your buck when you invest in environmental health. . . .
‘I’m a big proponent of avoiding habitat fragmentation, of thinking holistically. I don’t know if rewilding is exactly the right word, but I do believe in taking a “one health” or “planetary health” approach. These infections don’t just impact us, they affect animals and ecosystems too. We need to be thinking about how we can use nature-based solutions to promote health for humans and for all the other living beings that share this planet.’
InsideClimateNews.org | @InsideClimate | @bhabna_
AI is making workers anti-social in the office, Microsoft says—Ben Kesslen
A new Microsoft report found that people are using artificial intelligence to avoid working with their colleagues
Office workers are turning to AI when they’re too embarrassed to ask their colleagues questions, according to Microsoft’s (MSFT +0.74%) 2025 Work Trend report.
‘Microsoft surveyed 31,000 workers in 31 countries to ask how they are adapting to working with AI. While it found more people are turning to AI for its unique capabilities, plenty of people are using it to avoid human interaction.
‘Seventeen percent of those surveyed said they use AI out of fear of judgment and like that AI feels private. Another 16% reported using it to avoid the friction of working with a colleague. Fifteen percent cited the demands of colleagues as a reason to turn to AI, since it requires less “handholding.” And 8% said they use AI so they can take all the credit for the work and avoid citing a coworker. . . .’
qz.com | @qz | @benkesslen
Graphic generated by ChatGPT image generator.
The satellite that will 'weigh' world's 1.5 trillion trees—Esme Stallard
‘The world's rainforests are often referred to as the "lungs of the earth".
‘They store billions of tonnes of carbon and in doing so help to reduce the impacts of climate change.
‘But with more than one and half trillion trees, measuring exactly how much carbon they store has been virtually impossible, until now.
‘On Tuesday, the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched a first-of-a-kind satellite which uses a special radar system to reveal what lies beneath the canopy.
‘It is hoped it will help scientists better understand the importance of rainforests in storing carbon and the impact of deforestation. . . .
‘The satellite on board has been affectionately named "space brolly" for its giant 12m diameter antenna which will send out signals.
‘"We really want to interrogate these forests. We can actually look inside," Prof John Remedios, director of The National Centre for Earth Observation, which proposed the idea to ESA, said after the launch.
He said that it would be a major achievement ‘to actually know for the first time with high accuracy how much is actually in the Amazon, Congo, Indonesia’. . . .
‘The team is hoping to produce the first maps within six months, and will then continue to gather data for the next five years.
‘These annual maps will not only show how much carbon is stored but how much is being lost through deforestation. . . .’
bbc.com | @BBC | @EsmeStallard
Arresting headlines
Climate change could increase global levels of antimicrobial resistance, study: But the model created by the researchers also projected that if the low-resource countries where AMR is already a significant problem worked to meet sustainable development goals, they could cut global AMR levels by more than 5% by 2050—more than twice the impact estimated from cutting human antibiotic use in half—CIDRAP
PEPFAR funding cuts will lead to up to 74,000 excess HIV deaths in Africa by 2030, experts warn—CIDRAP
Animals that feel the slice of the knife: Some day, I suspect, we will wonder how we could have allowed so many animals to endure such profound suffering. As a onetime farm boy who raised sheep, cattle, geese, chickens and other animals, I understand that these aren’t just industrial cogs but animals with personalities not so different from our dogs and cats—New York Times (h/t Lynn Brown)
Top virologists urge world leaders to act on rising avian flu threat: Global Virus Network scientists highlight the need for robust surveillance, enhanced biosecurity, and readiness for potential human-to-human viral transmission—CIDRAP
Rent a chicken? More people take a crack at creating their own egg supply: People are flocking to backyard chickens this year, in part due to the sky-high cost of eggs at the grocery store. Some first-timers have turned to chicken rentals to try out ownership for a few months—NPR
Keep up the good work!