Archive - The Works in Progress Newsletter

Does daycare damage children's brains?

If it had a clear effect on children we would know by now.

Aug 19 • Phoebe Arslanagić-Little and Ellen Pasternack

Medical innovation needs you

Saloni's TED talk on clinical innovation was released today.

Aug 17 • Saloni Dattani

Will factory farming fix itself?

What smog, deforestation, and child labor tell us about the future of animal suffering

Aug 14 • Works in Progress

Cure all diseases

Few people know how much medicine has progressed in their lifetimes. Fewer know how much faster it could be progressing.

Aug 12 • Saloni Dattani and Works in Progress

The upper limits of biology

How much faster could racehorses get?

Aug 6 • Sophie Fessl and Works in Progress

July 2026

How ugliness helps NIMBYs

And how beauty could help get more homes built

Jul 31 • Samuel Hughes and Works in Progress

Are miracle drugs hiding in plain sight?

GLP-1 drugs have transformed the treatment of obesity and diabetes, and also help with heart disease, kidney disease and sleep apnea. But they are far…

Jul 24 • Saloni Dattani, Jacob Trefethen, and Works in Progress

2:31:42

The myth of medieval childhood

Is it really plausible that children survived the hardship of medieval life without devoted parents?

Jul 23 • Samuel Hughes and Works in Progress

Lessons from a high-fertility subculture

Modernity has meant fewer children in virtually every culture around the world. Do holdouts like Orthodox Jews have lessons for the rest of us?

Jul 22 • Sonja Trauss and Works in Progress

Why San Francisco isn’t bigger

Large swaths of America’s cities were originally underwater. We stopped half a century ago, but there is plenty more land left to take.

Jul 10 • Maxwell Tabarrok and Works in Progress

What's new in biology: July 2026

A synthetic cell made via chemistry, laser phase plate electron microscopy, the first base-edited human embryo, lab-grown eggs and sperm, and more.

Jul 9 • Saloni Dattani, Niko McCarty, and Works in Progress

Issue 24: How smashing the NIMBYs created modern capitalism

Works in Progress Issue 24 is out today.

Jul 1 • Works in Progress

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