User:The Transhumanist

User page undergoing expansion/revamp. Please excuse the blank section until it is completed. Thank you.

Introduction

Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf

Hi. My name is The Transhumanist.

As a transhumanist...

I love emerging and evolving technologies, and so...

I'm currently immersed in studying AI (particularly generative AI and reasoning engines), and big data.

I dabble in JavaScript, including writing user scripts from time to time.

My best user script so far, is SearchSuite...

SearchSuite provides further control over Wikipedia search results, such as on/off features to sort them, to present results one-per-line, and more. While it seems to work fairly well, there is definitely room for improvement. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

By the way, most of the scripts I've been working on are for building and augmenting outlines...

Wikipedia ads	file info – #184

As an encyclopedist...

I'm interested in all knowledge, especially how to organize it so you can find whatever is most relevant at any given moment.

I've been around Wikipedia since the Fall of 2005, and have been working mostly on Wikipedia's structure, and its knowledge navigation systems, throughout that time.

Selected articles that I've worked on

• 

  

  Roboticists with three Mars rover robots. Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover (MER) test vehicle that is a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the right is a test rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on Mars in 2012.

  
  
  Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots.
  
  Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer science, robotics focuses on robotic automation algorithms. Other disciplines contributing to robotics include electrical, control, software, information, electronic, telecommunication, computer, mechatronic, and materials engineering.
  
  The goal of most robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Many robots are built to do jobs that are hazardous to people, such as finding survivors in unstable ruins, and exploring space, mines and shipwrecks. Others replace people in jobs that are boring, repetitive, or unpleasant, such as cleaning, monitoring, transporting, and assembling. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as technological advances continue; researching, designing, and building new robots serve various practical purposes. (Full article...)
• 
  The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress in the United States, which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and academic libraries, while most public libraries and small academic libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The classification was developed by James Hanson (chief of the Catalog Department), with assistance from Charles Martel, in 1897, while they were working at the Library of Congress. It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson.
  
  LCC has been criticized for lacking a sound theoretical basis; many of the classification decisions were driven by the practical needs of that library rather than epistemological considerations. Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially enumerative in nature. That is, it provides a guide to the books actually in one library's collections, not a classification of the world. (Full article...)
• 
  Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include old technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies are often perceived as capable of changing the status quo.
  
  Emerging technologies are characterized by radical novelty (in application even if not in origins), relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, an emerging technology can be defined as "a radically novel and relatively fast growing technology characterised by a certain degree of coherence persisting over time and with the potential to exert a considerable impact on the socio-economic domain(s) which is observed in terms of the composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interactions among those, along with the associated knowledge production processes. Its most prominent impact, however, lies in the future and so in the emergence phase is still somewhat uncertain and ambiguous."
  
  Emerging technologies include a variety of technologies such as educational technology, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
  
  New technological fields may result from the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence brings previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video together so that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies. (Full article...)
• 
  Existential risk from artificial intelligence refers to the idea that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could lead to human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe.
  
  One argument for the importance of this risk references how human beings dominate other species because the human brain possesses distinctive capabilities other animals lack. If AI were to surpass human intelligence and become superintelligent, it might become uncontrollable. Just as the fate of the mountain gorilla depends on human goodwill, the fate of humanity could depend on the actions of a future machine superintelligence.
  
  The plausibility of existential catastrophe due to AI is widely debated. It hinges in part on whether AGI or superintelligence are achievable, the speed at which dangerous capabilities and behaviors emerge, and whether practical scenarios for AI takeovers exist. Concerns about superintelligence have been voiced by computer scientists and tech CEOs such as Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Alan Turing, Elon Musk, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In 2022, a survey of AI researchers with a 17% response rate found that the majority believed there is a 10 percent or greater chance that human inability to control AI will cause an existential catastrophe. In 2023, hundreds of AI experts and other notable figures signed a statement declaring, "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war". Following increased concern over AI risks, government leaders such as United Kingdom prime minister Rishi Sunak and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an increased focus on global AI regulation.
  
  Two sources of concern stem from the problems of AI control and alignment. Controlling a superintelligent machine or instilling it with human-compatible values may be difficult. Many researchers believe that a superintelligent machine would likely resist attempts to disable it or change its goals as that would prevent it from accomplishing its present goals. It would be extremely challenging to align a superintelligence with the full breadth of significant human values and constraints. In contrast, skeptics such as computer scientist Yann LeCun argue that superintelligent machines will have no desire for self-preservation. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  An abdominous obese male
  Weight: 182 kg/400 lbs
  Height: 185 cm/6 ft 1 in
  Body mass index: 53

  
  Abdominal obesity, also known as central obesity and truncal obesity, is the human condition of an excessive concentration of visceral fat around the stomach and abdomen to such an extent that it is likely to harm its bearer's health. Abdominal obesity has been strongly linked to cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and other metabolic and vascular diseases.
  
  Visceral fat, central abdominal fat, and waist circumference show a strong association with type 2 diabetes.
  
  Visceral fat, also known as organ fat or intra-abdominal fat, is located inside the peritoneal cavity, packed in between internal organs and torso, as opposed to subcutaneous fat, which is found underneath the skin, and intramuscular fat, which is found interspersed in skeletal muscle. Visceral fat is composed of several adipose depots including mesenteric, epididymal white adipose tissue (EWAT), and perirenal fat. An excess of adipose visceral fat is known as central obesity, the "pot belly" or "beer belly" effect, in which the abdomen protrudes excessively. This body type is also known as "apple shaped", as opposed to "pear shaped" in which fat is deposited on the hips and buttocks.
  
  Researchers first started to focus on abdominal obesity in the 1980s when they realized it had an important connection to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dyslipidemia. Abdominal obesity was more closely related with metabolic dysfunctions connected with cardiovascular disease than was general obesity. In the late 1980s and early 1990s insightful and powerful imaging techniques were discovered that would further help advance the understanding of the health risks associated with body fat accumulation. Techniques such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging made it possible to categorize mass of adipose tissue located at the abdominal level into intra-abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat. (Full article...)
• 
  Ontology learning (ontology extraction,ontology augmentation generation, ontology generation, or ontology acquisition) is the automatic or semi-automatic creation of ontologies, including extracting the corresponding domain's terms and the relationships between the concepts that these terms represent from a corpus of natural language text, and encoding them with an ontology language for easy retrieval. As building ontologies manually is extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming, there is great motivation to automate the process.
  
  
  Typically, the process starts by extracting terms and concepts or noun phrases from plain text using linguistic processors such as part-of-speech tagging and phrase chunking. Then statistical
  or symbolic
  techniques are used to extract relation signatures, often based on pattern-based or definition-based hypernym extraction techniques. (Full article...)
• 
  A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of problem-solving systems (e.g., superintelligent language translators or engineering assistants) whether or not these high-level intellectual competencies are embodied in agents that act in the world. A superintelligence may or may not be created by an intelligence explosion and associated with a technological singularity.
  
  University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom defines superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest". The program Fritz falls short of this conception of superintelligence—even though it is much better than humans at chess—because Fritz cannot outperform humans in other tasks.
  
  Technological researchers disagree about how likely present-day human intelligence is to be surpassed. Some argue that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will probably result in general reasoning systems that lack human cognitive limitations. Others believe that humans will evolve or directly modify their biology to achieve radically greater intelligence. Several future study scenarios combine elements from both of these possibilities, suggesting that humans are likely to interface with computers, or upload their minds to computers, in a way that enables substantial intelligence amplification.
  
  Some researchers believe that superintelligence will likely follow shortly after the development of artificial general intelligence. The first generally intelligent machines are likely to immediately hold an enormous advantage in at least some forms of mental capability, including the capacity of perfect recall, a vastly superior knowledge base, and the ability to multitask in ways not possible to biological entities. This may allow them to — either as a single being or as a new species — become much more powerful than humans, and displace them. (Full article...)
• 
  A userscript (or user script) is a program, usually written in JavaScript, for modifying web pages to augment browsing. Uses include adding shortcut buttons and keyboard shortcuts, controlling playback speeds, adding features to sites, and enhancing the browsing history.
  
  On desktop browsers such as Firefox, userscripts are enabled by use of a userscript manager browser extension such as Tampermonkey or Greasemonkey. The Presto-based Opera-supported userscripts (referred to as User JavaScript) are placed in a designated directory. Userscripts are often referred to as Greasemonkey scripts, named after the original userscript manager for Firefox.
  
  On Wikipedia, a user scripts feature is enabled for registered users that allows them to install userscripts to augment editing and viewing of the encyclopedia's pages. (Full article...)
• 
  Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that matches or surpasses human cognitive capabilities across a wide range of cognitive tasks. This contrasts with narrow AI, which is limited to specific tasks. Artificial superintelligence (ASI), on the other hand, refers to AGI that greatly exceeds human cognitive capabilities. AGI is considered one of the definitions of strong AI.
  
  Creating AGI is a primary goal of AI research and of companies such as OpenAI and Meta. A 2020 survey identified 72 active AGI research and development projects across 37 countries.
  
  The timeline for achieving AGI remains a subject of ongoing debate among researchers and experts. As of 2023, some argue that it may be possible in years or decades; others maintain it might take a century or longer; a minority believe it may never be achieved; and another minority claims that it is already here. Notable AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton has expressed concerns about the rapid progress towards AGI, suggesting it could be achieved sooner than many expect.
  
  There is debate on the exact definition of AGI and regarding whether modern large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 are early forms of AGI. AGI is a common topic in science fiction and futures studies. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Blood flow diagram of the human heart. Blue components indicate de-oxygenated blood pathways and red components indicate oxygenated blood pathways.

  
  Cardiology (from Ancient Greek καρδίᾱ (kardiā) 'heart' and -λογία (-logia) 'study') is the study of the heart. Cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease, and electrophysiology. Physicians who specialize in this field of medicine are called cardiologists, a sub-specialty of internal medicine. Pediatric cardiologists are pediatricians who specialize in cardiology. Physicians who specialize in cardiac surgery are called cardiothoracic surgeons or cardiac surgeons, a specialty of general surgery. (Full article...)
• 
  The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each successive; and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human intelligence.
  
  The Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957) became the first known person to use the concept of a "singularity" in the technological context.
  
  Alan Turing, often regarded as the father of modern computer science, laid a crucial foundation for the contemporary discourse on the technological singularity. His pivotal 1950 paper, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," introduces the idea of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human.
  
  Stanislaw Ulam reported in 1958 an earlier discussion with von Neumann "centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue". Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  Human impact on the environment (or anthropogenic environmental impact) refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society (as in the built environment) is causing severe effects including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Some human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale include population growth, neoliberal economic policies and rapid economic growth, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss, have been proposed as representing catastrophic risks to the survival of the human species.
  
  The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity. The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it was first used in English by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in reference to human influences on climax plant communities. The atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term "Anthropocene" in the mid-1970s. The term is sometimes used in the context of pollution produced from human activity since the start of the Agricultural Revolution but also applies broadly to all major human impacts on the environment. Many of the actions taken by humans that contribute to a heated environment stem from the burning of fossil fuel from a variety of sources, such as: electricity, cars, planes, space heating, manufacturing, or the destruction of forests. (Full article...)
• 
  Artificial consciousness, also known as machine consciousness, synthetic consciousness, or digital consciousness, is the consciousness hypothesized to be possible in artificial intelligence. It is also the corresponding field of study, which draws insights from philosophy of mind, philosophy of artificial intelligence, cognitive science and neuroscience.
  
  The same terminology can be used with the term "sentience" instead of "consciousness" when specifically designating phenomenal consciousness (the ability to feel qualia). Since sentience involves the ability to experience ethically positive or negative (i.e., valenced) mental states, it may justify welfare concerns and legal protection, as with animals.
  
  Some scholars believe that consciousness is generated by the interoperation of various parts of the brain; these mechanisms are labeled the neural correlates of consciousness or NCC. Some further believe that constructing a system (e.g., a computer system) that can emulate this NCC interoperation would result in a system that is conscious. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Visualization of various methodological approaches to gaining insights from meta data areas

  
  
  Information science is an academic field which is primarily concerned with analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information. Practitioners within and outside the field study the application and the usage of knowledge in organizations in addition to the interaction between people, organizations, and any existing information systems with the aim of creating, replacing, improving, or understanding the information systems.
  
  Historically, information science is associated with informatics, computer science, data science, psychology, technology, documentation science, library science, healthcare, and intelligence agencies. However, information science also incorporates aspects of diverse fields such as archival science, cognitive science, commerce, law, linguistics, museology, management, mathematics, philosophy, public policy, and social sciences. (Full article...)
• 
  Knowledge extraction is the creation of knowledge from structured (relational databases, XML) and unstructured (text, documents, images) sources. The resulting knowledge needs to be in a machine-readable and machine-interpretable format and must represent knowledge in a manner that facilitates inferencing. Although it is methodically similar to information extraction (NLP) and ETL (data warehouse), the main criterion is that the extraction result goes beyond the creation of structured information or the transformation into a relational schema. It requires either the reuse of existing formal knowledge (reusing identifiers or ontologies) or the generation of a schema based on the source data.
  
  The RDB2RDF W3C group is currently standardizing a language for extraction of resource description frameworks (RDF) from relational databases. Another popular example for knowledge extraction is the transformation of Wikipedia into structured data and also the mapping to existing knowledge (see DBpedia and Freebase). (Full article...)
• 
  Help may refer to: (Full article...)
• 
  Prehistoric technology is technology that predates recorded history. History is the study of the past using written records. Anything prior to the first written accounts of history is prehistoric, including earlier technologies. About 2.5 million years before writing was developed, technology began with the earliest hominids who used stone tools, which they first used to hunt food, and later to cook.
  
  There are several factors that made the evolution of prehistoric technology possible or necessary. One of the key factors is behavioral modernity of the highly developed brain of Homo sapiens capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem-solving. The advent of agriculture resulted in lifestyle changes from nomadic lifestyles to ones lived in homes, with domesticated animals, and land farmed using more varied and sophisticated tools. Art, architecture, music and religion evolved over the course of the prehistoric periods. (Full article...)
• 
  This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology. (Full article...)
• 
  The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each successive; and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human intelligence.
  
  The Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957) became the first known person to use the concept of a "singularity" in the technological context.
  
  Alan Turing, often regarded as the father of modern computer science, laid a crucial foundation for the contemporary discourse on the technological singularity. His pivotal 1950 paper, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," introduces the idea of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human.
  
  Stanislaw Ulam reported in 1958 an earlier discussion with von Neumann "centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue". Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint. (Full article...)
• 
  In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is the observed exponential nature of the rate of technological change in recent history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future and may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  James Burke in 2007

  
  James Burke (born 22 December 1936) is a broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer. He was one of the main presenters of the BBC1 science series Tomorrow's World from 1965 to 1971 and created and presented the television series Connections (1978), and its more philosophical sequel The Day the Universe Changed (1985), about the history of science and technology. The Washington Post has called him "one of the most intriguing minds in the Western world". (Full article...)
• 

  

  A depiction of Idris visiting Heaven and Hell from an illuminated manuscript version of the Islamic text Stories of the Prophets (1577)

  
  The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity.
  
  In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again in a process referred to as reincarnation, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism, and metaphysics.
  
  Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific place (e.g., paradise or hell) after death, as determined by their god, based on their actions and beliefs during life. In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those of the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in the ended life. (Full article...)
• 
  Automatic taxonomy construction (ATC) is the use of software programs to generate taxonomical classifications from a body of texts called a corpus. ATC is a branch of natural language processing, which in turn is a branch of artificial intelligence.
  
  A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially, a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. Among other things, a taxonomy can be used to organize and index knowledge (stored as documents, articles, videos, etc.), such as in the form of a library classification system, or a search engine taxonomy, so that users can more easily find the information they are searching for. Many taxonomies are hierarchies (and thus, have an intrinsic tree structure), but not all are.
  
  Manually developing and maintaining a taxonomy is a labor-intensive task requiring significant time and resources, including familiarity of or expertise in the taxonomy's domain (scope, subject, or field), which drives the costs and limits the scope of such projects. Also, domain modelers have their own points of view which inevitably, even if unintentionally, work their way into the taxonomy. ATC uses artificial intelligence techniques to quickly automatically generate a taxonomy for a domain in order to avoid these problems and remove limitations. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and reproducibility of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances.
  
  Natural science can be divided into two main branches: life science and physical science. Life science is alternatively known as biology, and physical science is subdivided into branches: physics, chemistry, earth science, and astronomy. These branches of natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches (also known as fields). As empirical sciences, natural sciences use tools from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, converting information about nature into measurements that can be explained as clear statements of the "laws of nature".
  
  Modern natural science succeeded more classical approaches to natural philosophy. Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Bacon, and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain necessary in natural science. Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on. Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Two pieces of string under a light microscope

  
  String is a long flexible structure made from fibers twisted together into a single strand, or from multiple such strands which are in turn twisted together. String is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects. It is also used as a material to make things, such as textiles, and in arts and crafts. String is a simple tool, and its use by humans is known to have been developed tens of thousands of years ago. In Mesoamerica, for example, string was invented some 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, and was made by twisting plant fibers together. String may also be a component in other tools, and in devices as diverse as weapons, musical instruments, and toys. (Full article...)

Selected emerging technologies and related articles

• 
  New eugenics, also known as liberal eugenics (a term coined by bioethicist Nicholas Agar), advocates enhancing human characteristics and capacities through the use of reproductive technology and human genetic engineering. Those who advocate new eugenics generally think selecting or altering embryos should be left to the preferences of parents, rather than forbidden (or left to the preferences of the state). "New" eugenics purports to distinguish itself from the forms of eugenics practiced and advocated in the 20th century, which fell into disrepute after World War II. (Full article...)
• 
  A head transplant or full body transplant is an experimental surgical operation involving the grafting of one organism's head onto the body of another. In many experiments, the recipient's head has not been removed, but in others it has been. Experimentation in animals began in the early 1900s. As of 2025, no lasting successes have been achieved. (Full article...)
• 
  Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) (pronounced "hammer") is a magnetic storage technology for greatly increasing the amount of data that can be stored on a magnetic device such as a hard disk drive by temporarily heating the disk material during writing, which makes it much more receptive to magnetic effects and allows writing to much smaller regions (and much higher levels of data on a disk).
  
  The technology was initially seen as extremely difficult to achieve, with doubts expressed about its feasibility in 2013. The regions being written must be heated in a tiny area – small enough that diffraction prevents the use of normal laser focused heating – and requires a heating, writing and cooling cycle of less than 1 nanosecond, while also controlling the effects of repeated spot-heating on the drive platters, the drive-to-head contact, and the adjacent magnetic data which must not be affected. These challenges required the development of nano-scale surface plasmons (surface guided laser) instead of direct laser-based heating, new types of glass platters and heat-control coatings that tolerate rapid spot-heating without affecting the contact with the recording head or nearby data, new methods to mount the heating laser onto the drive head, and a wide range of other technical, development and control issues that needed to be overcome. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, iter meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy through a fusion process similar to that of the Sun. It is being built next to the Cadarache facility in southern France. Upon completion of construction of the main reactor and first plasma, planned for 2033–2034, ITER will be the largest of more than 100 fusion reactors built since the 1950s, with six times the plasma volume of JT-60SA in Japan, the largest tokamak operating today.
  
  The long-term goal of fusion research is to generate electricity. ITER's stated purpose is scientific research, and technological demonstration of a large fusion reactor, without electricity generation. ITER's goals are to achieve enough fusion to produce 10 times as much thermal output power as thermal power absorbed by the plasma for short time periods; to demonstrate and test technologies that would be needed to operate a fusion power plant including cryogenics, heating, control and diagnostics systems, and remote maintenance; to achieve and learn from a burning plasma; to test tritium breeding; and to demonstrate the safety of a fusion plant. (Full article...)
• 
  Passive immunization is a medical strategy long employed to provide temporary protection against pathogens. Early implementations involved recovering ostensibly cell-free plasma from the blood of human survivors or from non-human animals deliberately exposed to a specific pathogen or toxin. These approaches resulted in crude purifications of plasma-soluble proteins including antibodies.
  
  Antibodies (also known as an immunoglobulins) are complex proteins produced by vertebrates that recognize antigens (or molecular patterns) on pathogens and some dangerous compounds in order to alert the adaptive immune system that there are pathogens within the body. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Open data map

  
  Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license.
  
  The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements such as open-source software, open-source hardware, open content, open specifications, open education, open educational resources, open government, open knowledge, open access, open science, and the open web. The growth of the open data movement is paralleled by a rise in intellectual property rights. The philosophy behind open data has been long established (for example in the Mertonian tradition of science), but the term "open data" itself is recent, gaining popularity with the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web and, especially, with the launch of open-data government initiatives Data.gov, Data.gov.uk and Data.gov.in. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Phage injecting its genome into bacterial cell

  
  Phage therapy, viral phage therapy, or phagotherapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. This therapeutic approach emerged at the beginning of the 20th century but was progressively replaced by the use of antibiotics in most parts of the world after the Second World War. Bacteriophages, known as phages, are a form of virus that attach to bacterial cells and inject their genome into the cell. The bacteria's production of the viral genome interferes with its ability to function, halting the bacterial infection. The bacterial cell causing the infection is unable to reproduce and instead produces additional phages. Phages are very selective in the strains of bacteria they are effective against.
  
  Advantages include reduced side effects and reduced risk of the bacterium developing resistance, since bacteriophages are much more specific than antibiotics. They are typically harmless not only to the host organism but also to other beneficial bacteria, such as the gut microbiota, reducing the chances of opportunistic infections. They have a high therapeutic index; that is, phage therapy would be expected to give rise to few side effects, even at higher-than-therapeutic levels. Because phages replicate in vivo (in cells of living organism), a smaller effective dose can be used. (Full article...)
• 
  A designer baby is a baby whose genetic makeup has been selected or altered, often to exclude a particular gene or to remove genes associated with disease. This process usually involves analysing a wide range of human embryos to identify genes associated with particular diseases and characteristics, and selecting embryos that have the desired genetic makeup; a process known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Screening for single genes is commonly practiced, and polygenic screening is offered by a few companies. Other methods by which a baby's genetic information can be altered involve directly editing the genome before birth, which is not routinely performed and only one instance of this is known to have occurred as of 2019, where Chinese twins Lulu and Nana were edited as embryos, causing widespread criticism.
  
  Genetically altered embryos can be achieved by introducing the desired genetic material into the embryo itself, or into the sperm and/or egg cells of the parents; either by delivering the desired genes directly into the cell or using gene-editing technology. This process is known as germline engineering and performing this on embryos that will be brought to term is typically prohibited by law. Editing embryos in this manner means that the genetic changes can be carried down to future generations, and since the technology concerns editing the genes of an unborn baby, it is considered controversial and is subject to ethical debate. While some scientists condone the use of this technology to treat disease, concerns have been raised that this could be translated into using the technology for cosmetic purposes and enhancement of human traits. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Progress in machine classification of images
  ----
  The error rate of AI by year. Red line - the error rate of a trained human on a particular task.
  

  
  Progress in artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the advances, milestones, and breakthroughs that have been achieved in the field of artificial intelligence over time. AI is a multidisciplinary branch of computer science that aims to create machines and systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. AI applications have been used in a wide range of fields including medical diagnosis, finance, robotics, law, video games, agriculture, and scientific discovery. However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: "A lot of cutting-edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labeled AI anymore." "Many thousands of AI applications are deeply embedded in the infrastructure of every industry." In the late 1990s and early 2000s, AI technology became widely used as elements of larger systems, but the field was rarely credited for these successes at the time.
  
  Kaplan and Haenlein structure artificial intelligence along three evolutionary stages: (Full article...)
• 
  A volumetric display device is a display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects. One definition offered by pioneers in the field is that volumetric displays create 3D imagery via the emission, scattering, or relaying of illumination from well-defined regions in (x,y,z) space.
  
  A true volumetric display produces in the observer a visual experience of a material object in three-dimensional space, even though no such object is present. The perceived object displays characteristics similar to an actual material object by allowing the observer to view it from any direction, to focus a camera on a specific detail, and to see perspective – meaning that the parts of the image closer to the viewer appear larger than those further away. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Diagram of the eye, the retina, and location of the various retinal implants.
  Retinal layers, from bottom to top: retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), photoreceptors (PR), horizontal cells (HC), bipolar cells (BC), amacrine cells (AC), ganglion cells (RGC), nerve fiber layer (RNFL).

  
  A retinal implant is a visual prosthesis for restoration of sight to patients blinded by retinal degeneration. The system is meant to partially restore useful vision to those who have lost their photoreceptors due to retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) or age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Retinal implants are being developed by a number of private companies and research institutions, and three types are in clinical trials: epiretinal (on the retina), subretinal (behind the retina), and suprachoroidal (between the choroid and the sclera). The implants introduce visual information into the retina by electrically stimulating the surviving retinal neurons. So far, elicited percepts had rather low resolution, and may be suitable for light perception and recognition of simple objects. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Watermark present on DALL-E images

  
  DALL-E, DALL-E 2, and DALL-E 3 (stylised DALL·E, and pronounced DOLL-E) are text-to-image models developed by OpenAI using deep learning methodologies to generate digital images from natural language descriptions known as prompts.
  
  The first version of DALL-E was announced in January 2021. In the following year, its successor DALL-E 2 was released. DALL-E 3 was released natively into ChatGPT for ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise customers in October 2023, with availability via OpenAI's API and "Labs" platform provided in early November. Microsoft implemented the model in Bing's Image Creator tool and plans to implement it into their Designer app. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  The 3M22 Zircon, also spelled as Tsirkon (Russian: Циркон, NATO reporting name: SS-N-33) is a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile. Produced by NPO Mashinostroyeniya for the Russian Navy, the missile utilizes the 3S-14 launch platforms on frigates and submarines. The missile has a reported top speed of Mach 9. The weapon was first used during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology that was expected to store up to several terabytes of data on an optical disc 10 cm or 12 cm in diameter. Its development commenced in April 2004. The technology was abandoned due to funding issues. One of the responsible companies went bankrupt in 2010.
  
  The reduced radius was meant to reduce costs and materials used. It employs a technique known as Collinear Holography, whereby a blue-green and red laser beam are collimated in a single beam. The blue-green laser reads data encoded as laser interference fringes from a holographic layer near the top of the disc. A red laser is used as the reference beam to read servoinformation from a regular CD-style aluminium layer near the bottom. Servoinformation is used to monitor the position of the read head over the disc, similar to the head, track, and sector information on a conventional hard disk drive. On a CD or DVD this servoinformation is interspersed among the data. A dichroic mirror layer between the holographic data and the servo data reflects the blue-green laser while letting the red laser pass through. This prevents interference from refraction of the blue-green laser off the servo data pits and is an advance over past holographic storage media, which either experienced too much interference, or lacked the servo data entirely, making them incompatible with current CD and DVD drive technology. (Full article...)
• 
  Gastrobot, meaning literally 'stomach robot', was a term coined in 1998 by the University of South Florida professor, Dr. Stuart Wilkinson, who stated that a gastrobot is "...an intelligent machine (robot) that derives all its energy requirements from the digestion of real food." The gastrobot's energy intake may come in the form of carbohydrates, lipids etc., or may be a simpler source, such as alcohol.
  
  This type of robot ingests food and passes it into a microbial fuel cell (MFC), which converts the food into gases and other potential energy. The gases and liquids help fuel things such as a hydrogen fuel cell, which helps create more energy, and generates other gases that help power the gastrobot's mechanics. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Transrapid 09 at the Emsland test facility in Lower Saxony, Germany

  
  Maglev (derived from magnetic levitation) is a system of rail transport whose rolling stock is levitated by electromagnets rather than rolled on wheels, eliminating rolling resistance.
  
  Compared to conventional railways, maglev trains can have higher top speeds, superior acceleration and deceleration, lower maintenance costs, improved gradient handling, and lower noise. However, they are more expensive to build, cannot use existing infrastructure, and use more energy at high speeds. (Full article...)
• 
  Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a renewable energy technology that harnesses the temperature difference between the warm surface waters of the ocean and the cold depths to run a heat engine to produce electricity. It is a unique form of clean energy generation that has the potential to provide a consistent and sustainable source of power. Although it has challenges to overcome, OTEC has the potential to provide a consistent and sustainable source of clean energy, particularly in tropical regions with access to deep ocean water. (Full article...)
• 
  A nanoradio (also called carbon nanotube radio) is a nanotechnology acting as a radio transmitter and receiver by using carbon nanotubes. One of the first nanoradios was constructed in 2007 by researchers under Alex Zettl at the University of California, Berkeley where they successfully transmitted an audio signal. Due to the small size, nanoradios can have several possible applications such as radio function in the bloodstream. (Full article...)
• 
  Electrorheological (ER) fluids are suspensions of extremely fine non-conducting but electrically active particles (up to 50 micrometres diameter) in an electrically insulating fluid. The apparent viscosity of these fluids changes reversibly by an order of up to 100,000 in response to an electric field. For example, a typical ER fluid can go from the consistency of a liquid to that of a gel, and back, with response times on the order of milliseconds. The effect is sometimes called the Winslow effect after its discoverer, the American inventor Willis Winslow, who obtained a US patent on the effect in 1947 and wrote an article published in 1949. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Elbit Systems Hermes-450 taking off

  
  An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications. These include aerial photography, area coverage, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, weather observation, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Diagram of an electrical grid (generation system in red, transmission system in blue, distribution system in green)

  
  
  An electrical grid (or electricity network) is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids consist of power stations, electrical substations to step voltage up or down, electric power transmission to carry power over long distances, and finally electric power distribution to customers. In that last step, voltage is stepped down again to the required service voltage. Power stations are typically built close to energy sources and far from densely populated areas. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. From small to large there are microgrids, wide area synchronous grids, and super grids. The combined transmission and distribution network is part of electricity delivery, known as the power grid.
  
  Grids are nearly always synchronous, meaning all distribution areas operate with three phase alternating current (AC) frequencies synchronized (so that voltage swings occur at almost the same time). This allows transmission of AC power throughout the area, connecting the electricity generators with consumers. Grids can enable more efficient electricity markets. (Full article...)
• 
  The Lightweight Small Arms Technologies (LSAT) program is funded by the U.S. Joint Service Small Arms Program, with the goal of significantly reducing the weight of small arms and their ammunition. Following a series of military programs to investigate advances in small arms (SPIW, Future Rifle, ACR, OICW), the LSAT program is the US military's latest project to replace existing US small arms. Tactical concepts and the research from the previous small arms programs indicates that lightening small arms is the first significant step towards increasing soldiers' lethality and survivability.
  
  Initiated in 2004 (then called the Lightweight Machine Gun and Ammunition program), development is now led by Textron. Development began with two types of weight reducing ammunition, and a light machine gun to serve as a testbed and technology demonstrator. Minimization of program risk is shown by the development of the lower performing but less risky polymer-cased ammunition alongside caseless ammunition (which falls higher in both criteria), by the use of extensive computer simulations before prototyping, and by the use of existing and proven technologies, such as the High Ignition Temperature Propellant (HITP) developed for the Heckler & Koch G11. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Energy from a source such as sunlight is used to lift a mass such as water upward against the force of gravity, giving it potential energy. The stored potential energy is later converted to electricity that is added to the power grid, even when the original energy source is not available.

  
  A gravity battery is a type of energy storage device that stores gravitational energy—the potential energy E given to an object with a mass m when it is raised against the force of gravity of Earth (g, 9.8 m/s²) into a height difference h.
  
  In a common application, when renewable energy sources such as wind and solar provide more energy than is immediately required, the excess energy is used to move a mass upward against the force of gravity to generate gravitational potential energy. When customers eventually require more energy than the sources can provide, the mass is lowered to convert the potential energy into electricity using an electric generator. Though solid masses such as concrete blocks can be used, more commonly, pumped-storage hydroelectricity generation involves pumping water to higher elevations and later guiding it through water turbines to generate electricity. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Simple reflex agent

  
  A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can solve problems that are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or a monolithic system to solve. Intelligence may include methodic, functional, procedural approaches, algorithmic search or reinforcement learning. With advancements in Large language model (LLMs), LLM-based multi-agent systems have emerged as a new area of research, enabling more sophisticated interactions and coordination among agents.
  
  Despite considerable overlap, a multi-agent system is not always the same as an agent-based model (ABM). The goal of an ABM is to search for explanatory insight into the collective behavior of agents (which do not necessarily need to be "intelligent") obeying simple rules, typically in natural systems, rather than in solving specific practical or engineering problems. The terminology of ABM tends to be used more often in the science, and MAS in engineering and technology. Applications where multi-agent systems research may deliver an appropriate approach include online trading, disaster response, target surveillance and social structure modelling. (Full article...)

Selected global issues and related topics

• 
  International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (See: World economy.)
  
  In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product (GDP). While international trade has existed throughout history (for example Uttarapatha, Silk Road, Amber Road, salt roads), its economic, social, and political importance has been on the rise in recent centuries.
  
  Carrying out trade at an international level is a complex process when compared to domestic trade. When trade takes place between two or more states, factors like currency, government policies, economy, judicial system, laws, and markets influence trade. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Changes in surface air temperature over the past 50 years. The Arctic has warmed the most, and temperatures on land have generally increased more than sea surface temperatures.

  
  Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming, has grown by about 50% and is at levels not seen for millions of years.
  
  Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
  
  Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change. (Full article...)
• 
  Overconsumption describes a situation where a consumer overuses their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this may be described as the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater than their marginal utility. The term overconsumption is quite controversial in use and does not necessarily have a single unifying definition. When used to refer to natural resources to the point where the environment is negatively affected, it is synonymous with the term overexploitation. However, when used in the broader economic sense, overconsumption can refer to all types of goods and services, including manmade ones, e.g. "the overconsumption of alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning". Overconsumption is driven by several factors of the current global economy, including forces like consumerism, planned obsolescence, economic materialism, and other unsustainable business models and can be contrasted with sustainable consumption.
  
  Defining the amount of a natural resource required to be consumed for it to count as "overconsumption" is challenging because defining a sustainable capacity of the system requires accounting for many variables. The total capacity of a system occurs at both the regional and worldwide levels, which means that certain regions may have higher consumption levels of certain resources than others due to greater resources without overconsuming a resource. A long-term pattern of overconsumption in any given region or ecological system can cause a reduction in natural resources that often results in environmental degradation. However, this is only when applying the word to human impacts on the environment. When used in an economic sense, this point is defined as when the marginal cost of a consumer is equal to their marginal utility. Gossen's law of diminishing utility states that at this point, the consumer realizes the cost of consuming/purchasing another item/good is not worth the amount of utility (also known as happiness or satisfaction from the good) they'd receive, and therefore is not conducive to the consumer's wellbeing.
  
  When used in the environmental sense, the discussion of overconsumption often parallels that of population size and growth, and human development: more people demanding higher qualities of living, currently requires greater extraction of resources, which causes subsequent environmental degradation such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Currently, the inhabitants of high wealth, "developed" nations consume resources at a rate almost 32 times greater than those of the developing world, who make up the majority of the human population (7.9 billion people). However, the developing world is a growing consumer market. These nations are quickly gaining more purchasing power and it is expected that the Global South, which includes cities in Asia, America, and Africa, will account for 56% of consumption growth by 2030. This means that if current trends continue relative consumption rates will shift more into these developing countries, whereas developed countries would start to plateau. Sustainable Development Goal 12 "responsible consumption and production" is the main international policy tool with goals to abate the impact of overconsumption. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Unemployment rate, 2021

  
  
  Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.
  
  Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate, which is the number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the labour force (the total number of people employed added to those unemployed).
  
  Unemployment can have many sources, such as the following: (Full article...)
• 

  

  Global distribution of dryland areas based on the aridity index computed over a 30-year average during 1981 to 2010. Typical deserts are indicated by the hyper-arid category (light yellow).

  
  Desertification is a type of gradual land degradation of fertile land into arid desert due to a combination of natural processes and human activities.
  
  The immediate cause of desertification is the loss of most vegetation. This is driven by a number of factors, alone or in combination, such as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation for fuel or construction materials. Though vegetation plays a major role in determining the biological composition of the soil, studies have shown that, in many environments, the rate of erosion and runoff decreases exponentially with increased vegetation cover. Unprotected, dry soil surfaces blow away with the wind or are washed away by flash floods, leaving infertile lower soil layers that bake in the sun and become an unproductive hardpan. This spread of arid areas is caused by a variety of factors, such as overexploitation of soil as a result of human activity and the effects of climate change.
  
  At least 90% of the inhabitants of drylands live in developing countries, where they also suffer from poor economic and social conditions. This situation is exacerbated by land degradation because of the reduction in productivity, the precariousness of living conditions and the difficulty of access to resources and opportunities. (Full article...)
• 

  

  The distribution of atmospheric ozone in partial pressure as a function of altitude

  
  Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone layer) around Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon is referred to as the ozone hole. There are also springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion events in addition to these stratospheric events.
  
  The main causes of ozone depletion and the ozone hole are manufactured chemicals, especially manufactured halocarbon refrigerants, solvents, propellants, and foam-blowing agents (chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), HCFCs, halons), referred to as ozone-depleting substances (ODS). These compounds are transported into the stratosphere by turbulent mixing after being emitted from the surface, mixing much faster than the molecules can settle. Once in the stratosphere, they release atoms from the halogen group through photodissociation, which catalyze the breakdown of ozone (O₃) into oxygen (O₂). Both types of ozone depletion were observed to increase as emissions of halocarbons increased.
  
  Ozone depletion and the ozone hole have generated worldwide concern over increased cancer risks and other negative effects. The ozone layer prevents harmful wavelengths of ultraviolet (UVB) light from passing through the Earth's atmosphere. These wavelengths cause skin cancer, sunburn, permanent blindness, and cataracts, which were projected to increase dramatically as a result of thinning ozone, as well as harming plants and animals. These concerns led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which bans the production of CFCs, halons, and other ozone-depleting chemicals. Over time, scientists have developed new refrigerants with lower global warming potential (GWP) to replace older ones. For example, in new automobiles, R-1234yf systems are now common, being chosen over refrigerants with much higher GWP such as R-134a and R-12. (Full article...)
• 

  

  A typical suburban development in the United States, located in Chandler, Arizona

  
  Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses, dense multi–family apartments, office buildings and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a more or less densely populated city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for very dense urban planning. Sometimes the urban areas described as the most "sprawling" are the most densely populated. In addition to describing a special form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. In modern times some suburban areas described as "sprawl" have less detached housing and higher density than the nearby core city. Medieval suburbs suffered from the loss of protection of city walls, before the advent of industrial warfare. Modern disadvantages and costs include increased travel time, transport costs, pollution, and destruction of the countryside. The revenue for building and maintaining urban infrastructure in these areas are gained mostly through property and sales taxes. Most jobs in the US are now located in suburbs generating much of the revenue, although a lack of growth will require higher tax rates.
  
  In Europe, the term peri-urbanisation is often used to denote similar dynamics and phenomena, but the term urban sprawl is currently being used by the European Environment Agency. There is widespread disagreement about what constitutes sprawl and how to quantify it. For example, some commentators measure sprawl by residential density, using the average number of residential units per acre in a given area. Others associate it with decentralization (spread of population without a well-defined centre), discontinuity (leapfrogging development, as defined below), segregation of uses, and so forth.
  
  The term urban sprawl is highly politicized and almost always has negative connotations. It is criticized for causing environmental degradation, intensifying segregation, and undermining the vitality of existing urban areas, and is attacked on aesthetic grounds. The pejorative meaning of the term means that few openly support urban sprawl as such. The term has become a rallying cry for managing urban growth. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Tar sands in Alberta, 2008. Oil is one of the most used resources by humans.

  
  Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources. The use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion. The value of a resource is a direct result of its availability in nature and the cost of extracting the resource. The more a resource is depleted the more the value of the resource increases. There are several types of resource depletion, including but not limited to: mining for fossil fuels and minerals, deforestation, pollution or contamination of resources, wetland and ecosystem degradation, soil erosion, overconsumption, aquifer depletion, and the excessive or unnecessary use of resources. Resource depletion is most commonly used in reference to farming, fishing, mining, water usage, and the consumption of fossil fuels. Depletion of wildlife populations is called defaunation.
  
  Resource depletion also brings up topics regarding its history, specifically its roots in colonialism and the Industrial Revolution, depletion accounting, and the socioeconomic impacts of resource depletion, as well as the morality of resource consumption, how humanity will be impacted and what the future will look like if resource depletion continues at the current rate, Earth Overshoot Day, and when specific resources will be completely exhausted. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Seabirds killed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The spill in March 1989 dumped approximately 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil into the environment, killing over 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and numerous other wildlife. The Alaskan fishing industry also suffered tremendously as a result of the spill.

  
  An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity. This point distinguishes environmental disasters from other disturbances such as natural disasters and intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.
  
  Environmental disasters show how the impact of humans' alteration of the land has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences. These disasters have included deaths of wildlife, humans and plants, or severe disruption of human life or health, possibly requiring migration. Some environmental disasters are the trigger source of more expansive environmental conflicts, where effected groups try to socially confront the actors responsible for the disaster. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil's Maranhão state, 2016

  
  Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. Estimates vary widely as to the extent of deforestation in the tropics. In 2019, nearly a third of the overall tree cover loss, or 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests. These are areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage.
  
  
  The direct cause of most deforestation is agriculture by far. More than 80% of deforestation was attributed to agriculture in 2018. Forests are being converted to plantations for coffee, palm oil, rubber and various other popular products. Livestock grazing also drives deforestation. Further drivers are the wood industry (logging), urbanization and mining. The effects of climate change are another cause via the increased risk of wildfires (see deforestation and climate change).
  
  
  Deforestation results in habitat destruction which in turn leads to biodiversity loss. Deforestation also leads to extinction of animals and plants, changes to the local climate, and displacement of indigenous people who live in forests. Deforested regions often also suffer from other environmental problems such as desertification and soil erosion. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Map of the world's biodiversity hot spots, all of which are heavily threatened by habitat loss and degradation

  
  
  Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved to elsewhere or are dead, leading to a decrease in biodiversity and species numbers. Habitat destruction is in fact the leading cause of biodiversity loss and species extinction worldwide.
  
  Humans contribute to habitat destruction through the use of natural resources, agriculture, industrial production and urbanization (urban sprawl). Other activities include mining, logging and trawling. Environmental factors can contribute to habitat destruction more indirectly. Geological processes, climate change, introduction of invasive species, ecosystem nutrient depletion, water and noise pollution are some examples. Loss of habitat can be preceded by an initial habitat fragmentation. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they are major threats to the survival of endangered species. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Changes in surface air temperature over the past 50 years. The Arctic has warmed the most, and temperatures on land have generally increased more than sea surface temperatures.

  
  Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming, has grown by about 50% and is at levels not seen for millions of years.
  
  Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
  
  Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Global concentrations of health care resources, as depicted by the number of physicians per 10,000 individuals, by country. Data is sourced from a World Health Statistics 2010, a WHO report.

  
  Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, tertiary care, and public health.
  
  Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, influenced by social and economic conditions and health policies. Providing health care services means "the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes". Factors to consider in terms of health care access include financial limitations (such as insurance coverage), geographical and logistical barriers (such as additional transportation costs and the ability to take paid time off work to use such services), sociocultural expectations, and personal limitations (lack of ability to communicate with health care providers, poor health literacy, low income). Limitations to health care services affect negatively the use of medical services, the efficacy of treatments, and overall outcome (well-being, mortality rates).
  
  Health systems are the organizations established to meet the health needs of targeted populations. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a well-functioning health care system requires a financing mechanism, a well-trained and adequately paid workforce, reliable information on which to base decisions and policies, and well-maintained health facilities to deliver quality medicines and technologies. (Full article...)
• 
  The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, internet telephony, and file sharing.
  
  The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the internetwork. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.
  
  Most traditional communication media, including telephone, radio, television, paper mail, and newspapers, are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephone, Internet television, online music, digital newspapers, and video streaming websites. Newspapers, books, and other print publishing have adapted to website technology or have been reshaped into blogging, web feeds, and online news aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking services. Online shopping has grown exponentially for major retailers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their "brick and mortar" presence to serve a larger market or even sell goods and services entirely online. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. (Full article...)
• 
  Biotechnology risk is a form of existential risk from biological sources, such as genetically engineered biological agents. The release of such high-consequence pathogens could be

  • deliberate (in the form of bioterrorism or biological weapons)
  • accidental, or
  • a naturally occurring event.

  
  
  A chapter on biotechnology and biosecurity was included in Nick Bostrom's 2008 anthology Global Catastrophic Risks, which covered risks including viral agents. Since then, new technologies like CRISPR and gene drives have been introduced.
  
  While the ability to deliberately engineer pathogens has been constrained to high-end labs run by top researchers, the technology to achieve this is rapidly becoming cheaper and more widespread. For example, the diminishing cost of sequencing the human genome (from $10 million to $1,000), the accumulation of large datasets of genetic information, the discovery of gene drives, and the discovery of CRISPR. Biotechnology risk is therefore a credible explanation for the Fermi paradox. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Raw sewage and industrial waste in the New River as it passes from Mexicali (Mexico) to Calexico, California

  
  Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater. This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource.
  
  Sources of water pollution are either point sources or non-point sources. Point sources have one identifiable cause, such as a storm drain, a wastewater treatment plant, or an oil spill. Non-point sources are more diffuse. An example is agricultural runoff. Pollution is the result of the cumulative effect over time. Pollution may take many forms. One would is toxic substances such as oil, metals, plastics, pesticides, persistent organic pollutants, and industrial waste products. Another is stressful conditions such as changes of pH, hypoxia or anoxia, increased temperatures, excessive turbidity, or changes of salinity). The introduction of pathogenic organisms is another. Contaminants may include organic and inorganic substances. A common cause of thermal pollution is the use of water as a coolant by power plants and industrial manufacturers.
  
  Control of water pollution requires appropriate infrastructure and management plans as well as legislation. Technology solutions can include improving sanitation, sewage treatment, industrial wastewater treatment, agricultural wastewater treatment, erosion control, sediment control and control of urban runoff (including stormwater management). (Full article...)
• 

  

  Ocean acidification means that the average seawater pH value is dropping over time.

  
  
  Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ocean acidification, with atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels exceeding 422 ppm (as of 2024). CO₂ from the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans. This chemical reaction produces carbonic acid (H₂CO₃) which dissociates into a bicarbonate ion (HCO−3) and a hydrogen ion (H⁺). The presence of free hydrogen ions (H⁺) lowers the pH of the ocean, increasing acidity (this does not mean that seawater is acidic yet; it is still alkaline, with a pH higher than 8). Marine calcifying organisms, such as mollusks and corals, are especially vulnerable because they rely on calcium carbonate to build shells and skeletons.
  
  A change in pH by 0.1 represents a 26% increase in hydrogen ion concentration in the world's oceans (the pH scale is logarithmic, so a change of one in pH units is equivalent to a tenfold change in hydrogen ion concentration). Sea-surface pH and carbonate saturation states vary depending on ocean depth and location. Colder and higher latitude waters are capable of absorbing more CO₂. This can cause acidity to rise, lowering the pH and carbonate saturation levels in these areas. There are several other factors that influence the atmosphere-ocean CO₂ exchange, and thus local ocean acidification. These include ocean currents and upwelling zones, proximity to large continental rivers, sea ice coverage, and atmospheric exchange with nitrogen and sulfur from fossil fuel burning and agriculture.
  
  A lower ocean pH has a range of potentially harmful effects for marine organisms. Scientists have observed for example reduced calcification, lowered immune responses, and reduced energy for basic functions such as reproduction. Ocean acidification can impact marine ecosystems that provide food and livelihoods for many people. About one billion people are wholly or partially dependent on the fishing, tourism, and coastal management services provided by coral reefs. Ongoing acidification of the oceans may therefore threaten food chains linked with the oceans. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Women selling produce at a market in Lilongwe, Malawi

  
  Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. The availability of food for people of any class and state, gender or religion is another element of food security. Similarly, household food security is considered to exist when all the members of a family, at all times, have access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Individuals who are food-secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Food security includes resilience to future disruptions of food supply. Such a disruption could occur due to various risk factors such as droughts and floods, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars. Food insecurity is the opposite of food security: a state where there is only limited or uncertain availability of suitable food.
  
  The concept of food security has evolved over time. The four pillars of food security include availability, access, utilization, and stability. In addition, there are two more dimensions that are important: agency and sustainability. These six dimensions of food security are reinforced in conceptual and legal understandings of the right to food. The World Food Summit in 1996 declared that "food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure."
  
  There are many causes of food insecurity. The most important ones are high food prices and disruptions in global food supplies for example due to war. There is also climate change, water scarcity, land degradation, agricultural diseases, pandemics and disease outbreaks that can all lead to food insecurity. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, convention centers (pictured here) were deemed to be ideal sites for temporary hospitals, due to their existing infrastructure (electrical, water, sewage). Hotels and dormitories were also considered appropriate because they can use negative pressure technology.

  
  
  A pandemic (/pænˈdɛmɪk/ pan-DEM-ik) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
  
  Throughout human history, there have been a number of pandemics of diseases such as smallpox. The Black Death, caused by the Plague, caused the deaths of up to half of the population of Europe in the 14th century. The term pandemic had not been used then, but was used for later epidemics, including the 1918 H1N1 influenza A pandemic—more commonly known as the Spanish flu—which is the deadliest pandemic in history. The most recent pandemics include the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the 2009 swine flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all these diseases still circulate among humans though their impact now is often far less.
  
  In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 194 member states of the World Health Organization began negotiations on an International Treaty on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, with a requirement to submit a draft of this treaty to the 77th World Health Assembly during its 2024 convention. Further, on 6 May 2024, the White House released an official policy to more safely manage medical research projects involving potentially hazardous pathogens, including viruses and bacteria, that may pose a risk of a pandemic. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Summary of major environmental-change categories that cause biodiversity loss. The data is expressed as a percentage of human-driven change (in red) relative to baseline (blue), as of 2021. Red indicates the percentage of the category that is damaged, lost, or otherwise affected, whereas blue indicates the percentage that is intact, remaining, or otherwise unaffected.

  
  Biodiversity loss happens when plant or animal species disappear completely from Earth (extinction) or when there is a decrease or disappearance of species in a specific area. Biodiversity loss means that there is a reduction in biological diversity in a given area. The decrease can be temporary or permanent. It is temporary if the damage that led to the loss is reversible in time, for example through ecological restoration. If this is not possible, then the decrease is permanent. The cause of most of the biodiversity loss is, generally speaking, human activities that push the planetary boundaries too far. These activities include habitat destruction (for example deforestation) and land use intensification (for example monoculture farming). Further problem areas are air and water pollution (including nutrient pollution), over-exploitation, invasive species and climate change.
  
  Many scientists, along with the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, say that the main reason for biodiversity loss is a growing human population because this leads to human overpopulation and excessive consumption. Others disagree, saying that loss of habitat is caused mainly by "the growth of commodities for export" and that population has very little to do with overall consumption. More important are wealth disparities between and within countries.
  
  Climate change is another threat to global biodiversity. For example, coral reefs—which are biodiversity hotspots—will be lost by the year 2100 if global warming continues at the current rate. Still, it is the general habitat destruction (often for expansion of agriculture), not climate change, that is currently the bigger driver of biodiversity loss. Invasive species and other disturbances have become more common in forests in the last several decades. These tend to be directly or indirectly connected to climate change and can cause a deterioration of forest ecosystems. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Mushroom cloud from the 1954 explosion of Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the U.S.

  
  A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radioactive fallout, with global consequences. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization, the extinction of humanity, or the termination of most biological life on Earth. Global fallout from widespread testing of nuclear weapons has caused until 2000 up to 2.4 million deaths, with some calling this testing genocide or ecocide.
  
  Besides the immediate destruction of cities by nuclear blasts, the potential aftermath of a nuclear war could involve firestorms, a nuclear winter, widespread radiation sickness from fallout, and/or the temporary (if not permanent) loss of much modern technology due to electromagnetic pulses. Some scientists, such as Alan Robock, have speculated that a thermonuclear war could result in the end of modern civilization on Earth, in part due to a long-lasting nuclear winter. In one model, the average temperature of Earth following a full thermonuclear war falls for several years by 7 – 8 °C (13 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit) on average.
  
  Early Cold War-era studies suggested that billions of humans would survive the immediate effects of nuclear blasts and radiation following a global thermonuclear war. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War believe that nuclear war could indirectly contribute to human extinction via secondary effects, including environmental consequences, societal breakdown, and economic collapse. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Changes in surface air temperature over the past 50 years. The Arctic has warmed the most, and temperatures on land have generally increased more than sea surface temperatures.

  
  Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas driving global warming, has grown by about 50% and is at levels not seen for millions of years.
  
  Climate change has an increasingly large impact on the environment. Deserts are expanding, while heat waves and wildfires are becoming more common. Amplified warming in the Arctic has contributed to thawing permafrost, retreat of glaciers and sea ice decline. Higher temperatures are also causing more intense storms, droughts, and other weather extremes. Rapid environmental change in mountains, coral reefs, and the Arctic is forcing many species to relocate or become extinct. Even if efforts to minimize future warming are successful, some effects will continue for centuries. These include ocean heating, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
  
  Climate change threatens people with increased flooding, extreme heat, increased food and water scarcity, more disease, and economic loss. Human migration and conflict can also be a result. The World Health Organization calls climate change one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. Societies and ecosystems will experience more severe risks without action to limit warming. Adapting to climate change through efforts like flood control measures or drought-resistant crops partially reduces climate change risks, although some limits to adaptation have already been reached. Poorer communities are responsible for a small share of global emissions, yet have the least ability to adapt and are most vulnerable to climate change. (Full article...)
• 
  Human overpopulation (or human population overshoot) is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of world population, though it may concern individual nations, regions, and cities.
  
  Since 1804, the global living human population has increased from 1 billion to 8 billion due to medical advancements and improved agricultural productivity. Annual world population growth peaked at 2.1% in 1968 and has since dropped to 1.1%. According to the most recent United Nations' projections, the global human population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and would peak at around 10.4 billion people in the 2080s, before decreasing, noting that fertility rates are falling worldwide. Other models agree that the population will stabilize before or after 2100. Conversely, other researchers have found that national birth registries data from 2022 and 2023 that cover half the world's population indicate that the 2022 UN projections overestimated fertility rates by 10 to 20% and are already outdated, that the global fertility rate has possibly already fallen below the sub-replacement fertility level for the first time in human history, and that the global population will peak at approximately 9.5 billion by 2061. The 2024 UN projections report estimated that world population would peak at 10.29 billion in 2084 and decline to 10.18 billion by 2100, which was 6% lower than the UN had estimated in 2014.
  
  Early discussions of overpopulation in English were spurred by the work of Thomas Malthus. Discussions of overpopulation follow a similar line of inquiry as Malthusianism and its Malthusian catastrophe, a hypothetical event where population exceeds agricultural capacity, causing famine or war over resources, resulting in poverty and depopulation. More recent discussion of overpopulation was popularized by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book The Population Bomb and subsequent writings. Ehrlich described overpopulation as a function of overconsumption, arguing that overpopulation should be defined by a population being unable to sustain itself without depleting non-renewable resources. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Destruction, from The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole (1836)

  
  Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an adaptive system, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot, mass migration, incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear.
  
  Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate, regardless of their size or complexity. Most never recovered, such as the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the Maya civilization, and the Easter Island civilization. However, some of them later revived and transformed, such as China, Greece, and Egypt.
  
  Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists have proposed a variety of explanations for the collapse of civilizations involving causative factors such as environmental degradation, depletion of resources, costs of rising complexity, invasion, disease, decay of social cohesion, growing inequality, extractive institutions, long-term decline of cognitive abilities, loss of creativity, and misfortune. However, complete extinction of a culture is not inevitable, and in some cases, the new societies that arise from the ashes of the old one are evidently its offspring, despite a dramatic reduction in sophistication. Moreover, the influence of a collapsed society, such as the Western Roman Empire, may linger on long after its death. (Full article...)

Did you know...

• ... that Zinkiv, Ukraine, was a center of Hasidic Judaism until almost the entirety of the city's 2,300-strong Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust?
• ... that the Skyrocket Galaxy has been described by NASA as looking like a "July 4th skyrocket"?
• ... that the rural village of Neath, New South Wales, had a population of three Tok Pisin speakers in 2021?
• ... that the African Union has set up a space agency in a Space City?
• ... that Jim Hobbins played two years of professional football, spaced apart by 11 years?
• ... that the Māori believed that the failure of the rockets launched at a pā (fort) during the Battle of Puketutu was due to rites and rituals performed during its construction?
• ... that five peregrine falcon chicks were released from the roof of an office building in Virginia in an unsuccessful attempt to combat an overpopulation of pigeons?
• ... that under Soekotjo Sastrodinoto, the municipal government of Surabaya signed up the city's homeless population for the transmigration program?
• ... that before getting their own office space, independent children's publisher Lollipop Power stored books "under beds, in attics, [and] under ping-pong tables"?
• ... that in Liberia, self-induced abortions are performed with herbal remedies known as "rocket-propelled grenade" and "Christmas leaf"?
• ... that the book A City on Mars covers sex in space, raising children in low gravity, space law, and space cannibalism?
• ... that Lillian V. Holdeman Moore identified a spike in hydrogen-gas-producing bacteria in Skylab astronauts?
• ... that after the original Stonewall Inn closed in 1969, its space was used by a bagel shop, a Chinese restaurant, and a clothing store?
• ... that al-Battani was one of the first astronomers to observe that the distance between the Earth and the Sun varies during the year?

Need help?

Do you have a question about any subject that you can't find the answer to?

Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.

Selected images that captured my attention

• 
  American astronaut Eugene Cernan (born March 14, 1934), shown here on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission, the last time any human has set foot on it. In that final lunar landing mission, launched December 7, 1972, Cernan became "the last man on the moon" since he was the last to re-enter the Apollo Lunar Module during its third and final extra-vehicular activity. Prior to this, Cernan had also gone into space twice on the Gemini 9A and Apollo 10 missions.
• 
  The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been.
• 
  The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was a magnitude 9.15, undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on December 26 2004. The earthquake generated a tsunami that killed more than 150,000 people around the Indian Ocean, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. This photograph shows the tsunami as it reached Ao Nang, Thailand.
• 
  The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on July 25, 1946. Its purpose was to test the effect of nuclear weapons on naval ships. It was the second US nuclear bomb set off since the bombing of Nagasaki.
• 
  The International Space Station (ISS) as seen from the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Zarya, the first module of the ISS launched in 1998, is seen in the foreground. Since then, twenty-six Space Shuttle flights have docked with the ISS to assemble various other modules and components, which include four pairs of solar arrays seen on each side.
• 
  aurora australis, as seen from the International Space Station. Aurorae are natural light displays in the sky caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude thermosphere. The particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere.
• 
  The sperm whale is the largest toothed animal on Earth. The species was hunted extensively by humans throughout history, until protected by a worldwide moratorium on whaling starting in 1985–86.
• 
  Sandboarding is a boardsport similar to snowboarding, but competitions take place on sand dunes rather than snow-covered mountains. Here, a member of the US Navy sandboards down a dune in Jebel Ali, Dubai.
• 
  San Francisco Bay shrouded in fog, as seen from the Marin Headlands looking east. The fog of San Francisco is a kind of sea fog, created when warm, moist air blows from the central Pacific Ocean across the cold water of the California Current, which flows just off the coast. The water is cold enough to lower the temperature of the air to the dew point, causing fog generation. In this photo, the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge can be seen poking through the fog, and the Bay Bridge is visible in the distance.
• 
  An animation of a cicada undergoing ecdysis, the molting of the exoskeleton in arthropods and related groups. Since the cuticula of these animals is inelastic, it is shed during growth and a new, larger covering is formed. The old, empty exoskeleton is called an exuvia. Within one or two hours, the cuticle hardens and darkens, during which time the animal grows, since growth is otherwise constrained by the rigidity of the exoskeleton. Each frame of this image was taken at one-minute intervals, with a 30-minute gap in middle while the cicada rested. The entire process took about 2 hours to complete.
• 
  United States Navy personnel engage in Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction (SPIE) training between a Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopter and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). SPIE involves either a person or goods being lowered from or raised to a helicopter via a cable above terrain on which landing would be difficult.
• 
  Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola module of the International Space Station, observing the Earth below during Expedition 24. Caldwell Dyson is an American chemist and astronaut. She was selected by NASA in 1998 and made her first spaceflight in August 2007 on the STS-118 mission aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour.
• 
  One of two monkey selfies taken by Celebes crested macaques using equipment belonging to the British nature photographer David Slater. In mid-2014, the images' hosting on Wikimedia Commons was at the centre of a dispute over whether copyright could be held on artworks made by non-human animals. Slater argued that, as he had "engineered" the shot, he held copyright, while Wikimedia considered the photographs public domain on the grounds that they were made by an animal rather than a person. In December 2014, the United States Copyright Office stated that works by a non-human are not subject to US copyright, a view reaffirmed by a US federal judge in 2016.
• 
  The Aqueduct of Segovia is a Roman aqueduct located in Segovia, Spain that transports water from the Rio Frio. It is thought to have been constructed during the 1st century CE. One of the most significant and best-preserved ancient monuments left on the Iberian Peninsula, the aqueduct is considered a symbol of Segovia and is present on the city's coat of arms.
• 
  The Door to Hell is a natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan, which has been burning since 1971 when it was ignited by Soviet scientists who expected it to burn out within days. They were trying to prevent the release of poisonous gases. The name "Door to Hell" was given to the field by locals. The hot spots range over an area with a width of 60 metres (200 ft) and to a depth of about 20 metres (66 ft).
• 
  The Hubble Extreme Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax released by NASA on September 25, 2012. The successor to the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, this image was compiled from 10 years of previous images with a total exposure time of two million seconds, or approximately 23 days.
• 
  Height comparison of notable statues: 1) Statue of Unity 240 m. 2) Spring Temple Buddha 153 m. 3) Statue of Liberty 93 m. 4) The Motherland Calls 91 m. 5) Christ the Redeemer 39.6 m. 6) Statue of David 5.17 m.
• 
  The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the freestanding bell tower of the Cathedral of Pisa, Italy. The third oldest structure in the city's Square of Miracles, it is known worldwide for its unintended tilt. The tower's tilt began during construction in the 12th century, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt gradually increased until the tower was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The tower, which measures 55.86 metres (183.27 feet) from the ground on the low side and 56.67 metres (185.93 feet) on the high side, has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
• 
  The American Bison, or Buffalo, is the largest terrestrial mammal in North America, and once inhabited the Great Plains in massive herds. They were central to the lives of Native American tribes. This pile of bison skulls from the 1870s illustrates the extent of their slaughter in the 19th century by settlers: from a population of about 60 million in 1800 to as few as 750 in 1890. They have since been reintroduced into the wild and are no longer considered a high risk endangered species.
• 
  Sand castle
• 
  A Marginated Tortoise hatchling.
• 
  The I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Once the third-busiest bridge in the state, it suddenly collapsed on August 1, 2007, killing 13 and injuring 145. Rescue of people stranded on the bridge was complete in three hours, while recovery of bodies—involving 75 local, state and federal agencies—took three weeks. An NTSB investigation cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that a too-thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets.
• 
  A neutral density filter is a filter that reduces or modifies the intensity of all wavelengths or colors of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition. The filter reduces the amount of light entering the lens, allowing the photographer to select combinations of aperture, exposure time and sensor sensitivity to avoid overexposed pictures. It would normally be attached to the lens, but is hand-held here to illustrate the effect.
• 
  A swan created using modular origami, a paperfolding technique which uses two or more sheets of paper to create a larger and more complex structure than possible with single-piece origami techniques. Each individual sheet of paper is folded into a module, or unit, and then modules are assembled into an integrated flat shape or three-dimensional structure by inserting flaps into pockets created by the folding process. These insertions create tension or friction that holds the model together.
• 
• 
  View from Notre-Dame de Paris.
• 
  Glaucus atlanticus is a species of small, blue sea slug. This pelagic aeolid nudibranch floats upside down, using the surface tension of the water to stay up, and is carried along by the winds and ocean currents. The blue side of their body faces upwards, blending in with the blue of the water, while the grey side faces downwards, blending in with the silvery surface of the sea. G. atlanticus feeds on other pelagic creatures, including the Portuguese man o' war.
• 
  Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and currently the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). It was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development known as Downtown Dubai. Construction took over five years, and the skyscraper was officially opened in January 2010.
• 
  The mushroom cloud caused by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945, rising approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) above the hypocenter.
• 
  Devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana during 2005, shown here looking down on Interstate 10 at West End Boulevard towards Lake Pontchartrain. Over 1,800 people were confirmed dead with 705 still missing. It was the costliest Atlantic hurricane in history causing around $86 billion in damage. This photo shows flooded roadways as the United States Coast Guard conducted initial damage assessment overflights of New Orleans on Monday, August 29, 2005. The city flooded due primarily to the failure of the levee system. Many who remained in their homes had to swim for their lives, wade through deep water, or remain trapped in their attics or on their rooftops.
• 
  You are feeling very sleepy...
• 
  The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy located 21 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was first discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781, and communicated to Charles Messier, who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries. This image, released on February 28, 2006, is composed of 51 individual exposures, as well as some extra ground-based photos. At the time of its release, it was the largest and most detailed image of a galaxy by the Hubble Space Telescope.
• 
  Atlantic White-sided Dolphins, on a concrete-floored dock at the port of Hvalba, which is in the Faroe Islands, north of the United Kingdom. Whaling in the Faroe Islands has been practised since at least the 10th century. It is strongly regulated by Faroese authorities and is approved by the International Whaling Commission.
• 
  An overhead view of Skylab, the United States' first space station, in Earth orbit as photographed from the Skylab 4 Command and Service Modules. Skylab 4 was the last mission to Skylab and brought back its final crew; this photograph was the last one taken of the station before the mission re-entered Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated in 1979.
• 
  The Thinker
• 
  A lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano found in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lava lakes, which can form in three different ways, are large volumes of molten lava, usually basaltic, contained in a volcanic vent, crater, or broad depression. Persistent lava lakes such as the one at Nyiragongo, which is the largest to appear in recent times, are rare.
• 
  Lucky Diamond Rich (b. 1971) is a New Zealand-born performance artist and street performer who holds the Guinness World Record for most tattooed man, taking the title from Tom Leppard in 2006. He is recognized by Guinness as being covered in tattoos over 100% of his body, including the inside of his eyelids, ears, and mouth.
• 
  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin saluting the flag of the United States, part of the Lunar Flag Assembly, during Apollo 11. The Lunar Flag Assembly was designed to survive a Moon landing and to appear to "wave" as it would in a breeze on Earth. This flag fell over when the Lunar Module Eagle took off.
• 
  Crash landing of an F6F Hellcat into the port side 20mm gun gallery of the USS Enterprise, November 10, 1943. Lieutenant Walter L. Chewning, Jr., USNR, the Catapult Officer, is climbing up the plane's side to assist the pilot from the burning aircraft. The pilot, Ensign Byron M. Johnson, escaped without significant injury. Note the plane's ruptured belly fuel tank.
• 
  Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the August 28 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 people participated in the march, which featured Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. It was a major factor leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The march was also condemned by the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, who termed it the "farce on Washington".
• 
  A man engaging in big wave surfing at Mavericks, located just north of Half Moon Bay, California. Big wave surfing is a discipline within surfing in which experienced surfers paddle into or are towed onto waves which are at least 20 ft (6.1 m) high, and is a hazardous activity, as surfers can be pushed far beneath the surface of the water after a wipeout.
• 
  Imagine waking up to this. Which makes me wonder whatever happened to the guy who took this photo.
• 
• 
  A dust storm rushes towards a military camp as it rolls over Al Asad Airbase, Iraq, just before nightfall on April 27, 2005. A dust storm (or sandstorm) is a meteorological phenomenon common in dry, arid and semi-arid regions, usually the result of convection currents created by intense heating of the ground. These currents then carry clouds of sand over large distances.
• 
  NGC 1300 is a barred spiral galaxy located roughly 69 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Eridanus. In its core, the nucleus shows its own extraordinary and distinct "grand-design" spiral structure that is about 3,300 light-years long.

Trump news tracker

7 January 2025 – Denmark–United States relations, Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland, Panama–United States relations

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump refuses to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, declaring U.S. control of both to be "vital to American national security". (AP)

Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. makes a personal visit to Greenland weeks after Trump announced that "ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity". In response to the visit, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen states that "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders". (BBC News)

6 January 2025 – Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland

The King of Denmark officially changes the Danish coat of arms to feature Greenland and the Faroe Islands more prominently, following suggestions from United States president-elect Donald Trump about the nation purchasing Greenland. (The Guardian)

6 January 2025 – Second presidential transition of Donald Trump

The U.S. Congress certifies the results of the 2024 presidential election. U.S. Vice President and Democratic Party candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Kamala Harris presides over the ceremony and certifies her defeat, officially making Donald Trump the President-elect and JD Vance the Vice President-elect. Trump and Vance are expected to be sworn-in on January 20. (ABC News)

1 January 2025 – Honduras–United States relations

Honduran President Xiomara Castro warns that she might remove all US military bases from Honduras and seek to cancel the military cooperation with the United States if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills his threat to order mass deportations of Hondurans when he takes office next January 20. (The Tico Times)

30 December 2024 – Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a jury verdict finding Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump. (USA Today)

24 December 2024 – Denmark–United States relations

The Danish government announces an increase in defense spending for Greenland hours after US president-elect Donald Trump repeated his interest in purchasing Greenland, although they affirm that the two are unrelated. (BBC News)

24 December 2024 – Protests against Donald Trump, Panama–United States relations

Protesters gather at the U.S. Embassy in Panama City over Trump's threat to take back the Panama Canal. (France24) (DW)

23 December 2024 – Panama–United States relations

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rebuffs U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's recent threat to reimpose U.S. control over the Panama Canal, saying its shipping tolls aren't inflated and that Panamanian sovereignty over the waterway isn't negotiable. (Bloomberg)

23 December 2024 – Second presidency of Donald Trump

The United States House Committee on Ethics releases a report on former Florida representative and Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz, revealing that Gaetz paid women for sexual activity, committed statutory rape with a 17-year-old, possessed and used illegal drugs, accepted financial gifts beyond House limits, and assisted a woman in obtaining a passport. (BBC News)

Joel Greenberg, a former IRS employee of Florida is sentenced to 11 years in prison on 6 federal charges for underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, producing a fake ID card, and conspiring to defraud the US federal government, receiving a reduced sentence after testifying against eight other men including Gaetz, after initially facing 33 federal charges. (CNN)

20 December 2024 – 2025 United States federal budget

A funding bill ensuring full operation of the U.S. federal government service with an amendment supported by President-elect Donald Trump that would enforce a two-year suspension of the federal debt ceiling is rejected in the Republican-majority House of Representatives, with multiple Republicans and nearly all Democrats opposing the bill. A government shutdown is expected to occur if no bill is passed by midnight. (BBC News)

Interests

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Main topic classifications

Main topic articles

Academic disciplines

Business

Communication

Concepts

Culture

Economy

Education

Energy

Engineering

Entertainment

Entities

Food and drink

Geography

Government

Health

History

Human behavior

Humanities

Information

Internet

Knowledge

Language

Law

Life

Lists

Mass media

Mathematics

Military

Nature

People

Philosophy

Politics

Religion

Science

Society

Sports

Technology

Time

Universe

Wikipedia newsfeed

9 January 2025 –

Two people are killed and 20 others are injured during a snowstorm in northern France. (AP)

9 January 2025 – 2022–2025 Lebanese presidential election

Lebanese military commander Joseph Aoun is elected as the President of Lebanon, ending the power vacuum that has lasted over two years. (AP News)

8 January 2025 – Boko Haram insurgency

2025 N'Djamena attack

Gunfire and military vehicles are reported near the Presidential Palace in N'Djamena, Chad, with the Chadian government accusing Boko Haram of being behind the attack. The Chad National Army has reportedly regained stable control of the capital, with 18 insurgents and one security force member being killed in the attack. (Devdiscourse) (Deutsche Welle)

8 January 2025 – Israel–Hamas war

Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip

Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip kill at least 22 people. (Arab News)

8 January 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine

Zaporizhzhia strikes, Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Russian forces attack an industrial facility in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, killing 13 people and injuring 18 others. Further strikes on Zaporizhzhia with guided aerial bombs kill 13 more people and injure 32 others. (Ukrainska Pravda) (Ukrainska Pravda 2)

8 January 2025 – 2025 California wildfires

January 2025 Southern California wildfires

Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire, Sunset Fire

More than 100,000 people are evacuated from approaching wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Hollywood neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Altadena, California, United States, that have burnt more than 3,000 acres, aggravated by an ongoing extreme windstorm and drought conditions. Five people are killed, dozens of others are injured, and around 1,000 structures are destroyed. (AP) (The Independent) (NBC News) (Reuters)

8 January 2025 – Deadly stampedes at Hindu temples in India

Six people are killed and over forty others are injured in a stampede at the Hindu Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. (AP) (Business Today)

8 January 2025 – Iran–Italy relations

The Iranian government releases Italian journalist Cecilia Sala from prison, with Sala arriving back in Rome later that day. (Euronews) (Yahoo! News)

8 January 2025 – Lithuania–Russia relations

Lithuanian prime minister Gintautas Paluckas deploys the police to secure the country's electricity link with Poland in response to reported attempts to disrupt the planned decoupling of the Baltic states' power systems from the grid shared with Belarus and Russia. (Reuters)

8 January 2025 –

Azerbaijan protests Eritrea's detention of three Azerbaijani-flagged vessels and 18 crew members since November 2024, stating the ships entered Eritrean waters due to adverse weather en route to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Reuters)

The British government freezes the assets of neo-Nazi music network Blood & Honour, becoming the first far-right group in the UK to be sanctioned by the government. (BBC News)

7 January 2025 – Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Three Pakistani soldiers and 19 Taliban insurgents are killed in shootouts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (AP)

7 January 2025 – Argentine debt restructuring

Argentina's country risk index, measured by the JPMorgan GBI-EM Index, briefly drops to 444 points, its lowest level since 2018, before closing at 561 points due to technical adjustments linked to upcoming bond payments, amid improved market sentiment driven by cooling inflation and signs of economic recovery. (Reuters)

7 January 2025 –

International flights resume from Damascus International Airport in Syria for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime. (France 24)

The merger of the providers of stock photography Getty Images and Shutterstock, by the acquisition of the latter by the former, is announced. (AP News)

7 January 2025 – 2025 California wildfires

An exceptional Santa Ana wind event reaching hurricane-force in some locations in southern California, United States, cause multiple power outages and wildfire outbreaks, including a rapidly-spreading >2,900 acre wildfire in Los Angeles County which causes several burn injuries and forces 30,000 people to evacuate. (CNN) (NBC News)

7 January 2025 – 2025 Tibet earthquake

At least 126 people are killed and dozens of others are injured when a magnitude M_w 7.1 (M_s 6.8) earthquake strikes Tingri County, Shigatse, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. (Al Jazeera) (AP)

7 January 2025 –

Thirteen Cuban soldiers are missing after explosions rocked an arms and ammunition depot in the Holguín Province. (CNN)

A light aircraft crashes near Rottnest Island, Western Australia, killing the pilot and two tourists from Denmark and Switzerland while injuring three other passengers. (Reuters)

7 January 2025 – HMPV outbreak in East Asia

India confirms their first cases of the human metapneumovirus disease. (CBS News)

7 January 2025 – Denmark–United States relations, Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland, Panama–United States relations

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump refuses to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, declaring U.S. control of both to be "vital to American national security". (AP)

Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. makes a personal visit to Greenland weeks after Trump announced that "ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity". In response to the visit, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen states that "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders". (BBC News)

Panamanian foreign minister Javier Martínez-Acha asserts that only Panamanians operate the Panama Canal and that its sovereignty is non-negotiable, dismissing Trump's claims that China operates the canal and his suggestion of potential U.S. military action to regain control. (DW)

7 January 2025 – Hungary–United States relations

The U.S. Treasury imposes sanctions on Hungarian cabinet minister Antal Rogán for alleged corruption, accusing him of using his position to secure financial benefits for himself and political allies. (Reuters)

7 January 2025 – Sudan–United States relations

The United States accuses the Rapid Support Forces of committing genocide in Sudan during the ongoing civil war and imposes sanctions on the group's leader Hemedti. (AP)

7 January 2025 – 2024 Venezuelan political crisis

Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González reports the kidnapping of his son-in-law Rafael Tudares by masked men in Caracas, as political tensions persist following González's contested claim of victory in the country's July presidential election. (Al Jazeera)

7 January 2025 –

Former Cambodian opposition lawmaker Lim Kimya is shot dead by a gunman on a motorcycle in Bangkok, Thailand. Cambodian officials deny allegations of involvement in Lim's death. (The Guardian)

Lebanon approves the extradition of Abdul Rahman Yusuf, the son of late Egyptian ulama Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to the United Arab Emirates following his detention on December 28 after returning from Syria. (Reuters)

Mauritius issues an arrest warrant for former finance minister Renganaden Padayachy over alleged embezzlement involving the disbursement of Rs. 45 million (US$1 million) from the Mauritius Investment Corporation. (Reuters)

Two people are killed and one is injured in a mass shooting at Zahnradfabrik Hanel in Bad Friedrichshall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The perpetrator is arrested. (DW)

7 January 2025 – 2024 Venezuelan political crisis

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro announces the arrest of seven foreign individuals, whom he accuses of planning terrorist acts to disrupt his upcoming inauguration, with security forces conducting a nationwide deployment. (Al Jazeera)

7 January 2025 – Death and state funeral of Jimmy Carter

The body of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter arrives in Washington, D.C. for a three-day mourning period, including a lying in state at the Capitol. (Reuters)

7 January 2025 – Libyan crisis

The House of Representatives of Libya approves a national reconciliation and transitional justice law aimed at unifying the country after over a decade of conflict. (Reuters)

7 January 2025 –

John Mahama is sworn in for a second term as President of Ghana, having previously served as president from 2012 to 2017. (Reuters)

Meta Platforms announces an end to its third-party fact-checking program and a transition to a crowd-sourced model similar to Twitter's Community Notes. (AP)

6 January 2025 – Islamist insurgency in the Sahel

French military withdrawal from West Africa

French President Emmanuel Macron states that France was right to intervene militarily in the African Sahel against Islamist militants, and states that he is still waiting for the Sahel states to "thank" France while also denying that the French military was forced out of the region. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Israel–Hamas war, Israeli incursions in the West Bank

Al-Funduq shooting attack

Three Israelis are killed and eight others are injured in a mass shooting attack by Palestinian gunmen firing at a bus and two vehicles on Highway 55 in Al-Funduq in the West Bank. (BBC News)

6 January 2025 – Naxalite–Maoist insurgency

2025 Bijapur Naxal attack

A bomb blast attributed to Maoist rebels in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh, India, kills eight police officers and a driver traveling in a police vehicle. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine

Kherson strikes, Attacks on civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

A Russian drone attacks a civilian passenger bus in Kherson, Ukraine, reportedly killing at least one person and injuring at least nine others. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – 2024 Magdeburg car attack

The death toll in the vehicle-ramming attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, on December 20, increases to six after a 52-year-old woman dies from injuries sustained in the attack. (BBC News)

6 January 2025 – North Korean missile tests

The South Korean military reports that North Korea has fired what appears to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile toward the Sea of Japan, in what would be the country's first missile launch in two months. The launch comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Seoul, South Korea, for talks with South Korean leaders. (BBC News)

6 January 2025 –

Two people are killed and two others are injured in an IED attack at a school near Abuja, Nigeria, with police identifying three men as suspects in bringing the device to the site. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – 2022–2023 Russia–European Union gas dispute

According to Slovakia, a planned meeting between Slovak, Ukrainian, and European Commission officials over gas supplies scheduled for Tuesday has been cancelled due to Ukraine's refusal to participate in the meeting. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 –

The Brazilian government announces that Indonesia has joined the BRICS trade bloc as a full member. (Reuters)

Davivienda, of Colombia, and Scotiabank, of Canada, announced a merger where Davivienda absorbs Scotiabank operations in Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama, and, in turn, Scotiabank acquires 20% of the stakes in Davivienda. (Scotiabank)

Several miners are trapped in a coal mine in Dima Hasao, Assam, India, with rescue efforts underway involving the State Disaster Response Force, the National Disaster Response Force, and the Indian Army. Local authorities state that flooding may have caused the incident. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – 2020–2025 H5N1 outbreak

The United States reports its first death from H5N1 bird flu after a man died in the hospital in Louisiana. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – Syrian civil war

Humanitarian aid during the Syrian civil war

The International Committee of the Red Cross announces plans to expand its operations in Syria beyond an initial US$100 million program, citing urgent needs in the health, water, and power sectors. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – International reactions to the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, Paraguay–Venezuela relations

The Venezuelan government suspends diplomatic relations with Paraguay, after Paraguayan President Santiago Peña recognized Edmundo González as president-elect of Venezuela. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 – Volksverhetzung

Germany reports a significant increase in far-right crime, primarily from increasing online expression offenses and hate speech, as well as an increase in Israel–Hamas war-related resentment. (Reuters)

6 January 2025 –

The Court of Appeal of Malaysia orders a lower court to reconsider former Prime Minister Najib Razak's claim of a royal order granting him home detention, which he alleges was issued alongside his reduced prison sentence for his involvement in the 1MDB corruption scandal. The ruling follows the disclosure of a letter confirming the existence of such an order, which the government asserts they have not received. (Reuters)

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello says that 125 foreign citizens have been arrested on suspicion of serving as United States mercenaries in order to cause a coup in Venezuela. (The Times of Israel)

6 January 2025 – 2024 Austrian legislative election

Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen gives a mandate to form the new post-election government to the Freedom Party's leader Herbert Kickl after the Austrian People's Party failed to form a government. However, Kickl is still expected to rule within a coalition of the two parties. (DW)

6 January 2025 – Conscription in Israel, Exemption from military service in Israel

More than 50 Haredi Jews join the Israel Defense Forces for the first time since the start of the Israel–Hamas war, forming the Haredi Hasmonean Brigade, after repeated protests against the conscription of yeshiva students. (The Economic Times) (The Jewish Chronicle)

6 January 2025 – Proposals for the United States to purchase Greenland

The King of Denmark officially changes the Danish coat of arms to feature Greenland and the Faroe Islands more prominently, following suggestions from United States president-elect Donald Trump about the nation purchasing Greenland. (The Guardian)

6 January 2025 – Resignation of Justin Trudeau

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party and also announces that he will resign as Prime Minister once a new Liberal Party leader is chosen. (BBC News)

6 January 2025 – Second presidential transition of Donald Trump

The U.S. Congress certifies the results of the 2024 presidential election. U.S. Vice President and Democratic Party candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Kamala Harris presides over the ceremony and certifies her defeat, officially making Donald Trump the President-elect and JD Vance the Vice President-elect. Trump and Vance are expected to be sworn-in on January 20. (ABC News)

6 January 2025 –

Pope Francis appoints Sister Simona Brambilla as Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, becoming the Vatican's first female prefect of the Roman Curia. (Vatican News)

The President of São Tomé and Príncipe, Carlos Vila Nova, dismisses the Government of Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada. (Africa News)

5 January 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine

Kursk offensive

The Ukrainian Army launches a new offensive in Kursk Oblast, Russia. (BBC News)

5 January 2025 – Boko Haram insurgency

Six soldiers and 34 Boko Haram gunmen are killed during a shootout in Borno State, Nigeria. (AP)

5 January 2025 – 82nd Golden Globe Awards

The film Emilia Pérez and the television series Shōgun win the most awards at the 82nd Golden Globes with four each. The Brutalist wins the awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director (Brady Corbet) and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for Adrien Brody. (NBC News)

Fernanda Torres becomes the first Brazilian actress to win the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her performance in I'm Still Here. (Variety)

5 January 2025 – January 2025 North American storm complex

The National Weather Service issues winter storm alerts for areas covering nearly 70 million people from the Great Plains to the East Coast of the United States, with nearly 4 million currently under blizzard warnings. (CNN)

5 January 2025 – Israel–United States relations, United States support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas war

The U.S. State Department notifies Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale to Israel consisting of air-to-air and Hellfire missiles, artillery shells, and other ammunitions. (BBC News)

5 January 2025 – Capital punishment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Congolese government executes 102 individuals convicted of armed robbery and urban banditry, with an additional 70 prisoners reportedly awaiting execution. (AP)

5 January 2025 –

Former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas is evacuated from La Roca Prison in Guayaquil following an alleged assassination attempt. (Reuters)

Resurfaced videos show Syrian Justice Minister Shadi al-Waisi overseeing the execution of two women in 2015 on prostitution charges according to Sharia. (The New Arab)

5 January 2025 – 2024–2025 Austrian government formation

The ruling Austrian People's Party appoints Christian Stocker as its acting chairman to succeed Karl Nehammer, who resigned as party leader and Chancellor of Austria yesterday. Stocker says that he is open to negotiate with the Freedom Party of Austria to form the new post-election coalition government. (DNYUZ)

5 January 2025 –

The German government reduces funding for two Israeli human rights groups, Zochrot and New Profile, that had advocated for Palestinian rights and antimilitarism. (DW)

5 January 2025 – 2025 United Cup

In tennis, the United States wins its second United Cup title after defeating Poland 2–0 in the final at the Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney, Australia. (Reuters)

4 January 2025 – Russian invasion of Ukraine

Eastern Ukraine campaign, Journalists killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War

A war correspondent for the Russian newspaper Izvestia is killed in a Ukrainian drone strike in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. (Reuters)

The Russian Armed Forces claims to have shot down eight American ATACMS missiles fired by Ukraine and vows retaliation. (CNN)

4 January 2025 – Haitian crisis, Guatemala–Haiti relations

Gang war in Haiti

Another 75 Guatemalan Army troops arrive in Haiti, joining 75 that arrived yesterday, to combat escalating gang violence. (CNN) (BBC News)

4 January 2025 – Israel–Hamas war

Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip

At least 70 Palestinians are killed and 14 others are reported missing in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City and Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. (Middle East Monitor) (India Today)

4 January 2025 – Kivu conflict

M23 offensive

M23 rebels capture the strategic town of Katale in Masisi Territory, North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Chimp Reports)

4 January 2025 – Anglophone Crisis

Gunmen from Nigeria kill at least five Cameroonian soldiers and injure several others in Bakinjaw, Southwest Region, Cameroon. (Reuters)

4 January 2025 – Insurgency in Balochistan

One person is killed and 35 others are injured, including soldiers, in a car bombing in Turbat, Balochistan, Pakistan. The Balochistan Liberation Army claims responsibility for the attack, which states it targeted a military convoy. (AP)

4 January 2025 – Boko Haram insurgency

The Nigerian Army repels an ambush in Borno State and kills 34 Islamist militants in a gun battle in which six soldiers also die. (Reuters)

4 January 2025 – January 2025 North American storm complex

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear declares a state of emergency for Kentucky, United States, amidst the upcoming winter storm. (WNKY)

4 January 2025 –

At least eight people are killed and 15 others are injured in a fire at a market in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China. (Al Jazeera)

The Taiwanese Coast Guard intercepts the Cameroon-registered container ship Shunxin39 after it was suspected of damaging an undersea cable north of Taiwan yesterday. (Taiwan News)

Myanmar state media reports that the ruling military junta will release 5,864 prisoners, including 180 foreigners, under an amnesty marking the country's national independence day. (Reuters)

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service and police announce an investigation into sightings of unknown drones reportedly flying over Køge, Region Zealand. (DW)

Four teenagers are arrested in Yekaterinburg, Russia, for allegedly planning a terrorist attack in the city. Two of the suspects are also accused of being involved in an arson attack on a Ministry of Internal Affairs vehicle in December. (DW)

4 January 2025 – 2024–2025 Georgian protests, 2024–2025 Georgian constitutional crisis

Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs announces the expulsion of 91 foreign citizens, including 25 who participated in anti-Georgian Dream and pro-EU protests. (TVP World)

4 January 2025 – 2024–2025 Austrian government formation

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer announces his resignation after talks on forming the new post-election coalition government between his Austrian People's Party, the Social Democratic Party and NEOS collapsed. (Euronews)

3 January 2025 – Syrian civil war

East Aleppo offensive

Clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army escalate near the Tishrin Dam in Aleppo Governorate, Syria. The Turkish Air Force also conducts airstrikes on SDF positions. (SOHR) (SOHR 2)

US intervention in the Syrian civil war

Deputy U.S. Defense Press Secretary Sabrina Singh says that, despite local reports, the U.S. Army has "no plans" to build a military base in Kobani, Aleppo Governorate, which is currently under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces. (Rudaw)

3 January 2025 – Haitian crisis

Gang war in Haiti, Guatemala–Haiti relations, El Salvador–Haiti relations, El Salvador–Guatemala relations

A contingent of peacekeeping troops from Guatemala and El Salvador arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to enforce a United Nations-backed multinational security mission to restore order to Port-au-Prince amid an increase in gang violence. (Reuters)

3 January 2025 – Red Sea crisis

The Israeli Defense Forces report the interception of a ballistic missile and a drone launched from Yemen. (France 24)

3 January 2025 – Proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel

U.S. President Joe Biden blocks a buyout bid by Japanese Nippon Steel for U.S. Steel. (BBC News)

3 January 2025 –

Qatar Airways announces the resumption of flights to Damascus International Airport in Syria beginning on January 7, becoming the first major international airline to resume scheduled service to Syria since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. (Aviation Week)

3 January 2025 – January 2025 North American winter storm

The National Weather Service issues winter storm warnings across the central Great Plains and an ice storm warning in Missouri, in anticipation of severe freezing rain and icing events. The winter storm begins impacting the northwestern continental United States with heavy snowfall. (The Weather Channel)

3 January 2025 – 2024–25 Ethiopian earthquakes

Evacuations are ordered in central Ethiopia due to increasing volcanic tremor and other unrest at the Mount Fentale stratovolcano, which last erupted in the 19th century. (Reuters)

3 January 2025 –

At least twelve people are killed and 30 others are injured after a bus carrying tourists falls into a ravine near the Pan-American Highway between Pasto and Rumichaca in Nariño Department, Colombia. (EFE)

Air quality technology company IQAir reports that Hanoi, Vietnam, has the worst air pollution of any city on Earth, with levels of hazardous small particles, known as PM2.5, measured at 266 micrograms per cubic metre. (Reuters)

3 January 2025 – Egypt–Syria relations

Egypt bans the entry of Syrians from all countries worldwide, except for those holding temporary residency permits for non-tourism purposes. The ban also includes Syrians married to Egyptians unless they obtain a security clearance. (The New Arab)

3 January 2025 – Germany–Syria relations, France–Syria relations

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot become the first European Union foreign ministers to travel to Damascus, Syria, after the fall of the Assad regime to discuss new diplomatic relations with the Syrian Transitional Government and Syrian civil society. (Der Spiegel) (France 24)

3 January 2025 – 2024 South Korean martial law crisis

Yoon Suk Yeol residence standoff

Corruption investigators and prosecutors raid the central Seoul residence of recently-impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to arrest Yoon for refusing to respond to three court summons. The raid is unsuccessful due to the Presidential Security Service blocking further entrance into the residence, leading to a multi-hour standoff. (The Guardian) (AP)

3 January 2025 – 2024 Estlink 2 incident

A district court in Helsinki, Finland, denies a request to release the impounded oil tanker Eagle S, suspected of damaging the Estlink 2 submarine power cable and carrying sanctioned Russian oil. (Al Jazeera)

3 January 2025 – War crimes in the Syrian civil war

The Syrian government arrests Aws Salloum, known as the "Angel of Death" of Sednaya Prison. Salloum is accused of multiple murders and abuse of prisoners at Sednaya, including the murder of Mazen al-Hamada. (Al Sharq Al Awsat)

3 January 2025 –

A suspect is arrested in Rotterdam, Netherlands, for shooting and killing three men between December 21 and January 2. The victims were selected at random. (The Sun)

3 January 2025 – Human trafficking in Southeast Asia

Chinese actor Wang Xing went missing at the Thailand-Myanmar border. He was rescued later (Jan 7) by Thai authorities. (The Star)

3 January 2025 – 2025 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

The United States House of Representatives, composed of 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats, re-elects Mike Johnson as House Speaker over incumbent House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. (CBS News)

3 January 2025 – Next Ukrainian presidential election

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the country will not hold presidential elections as long as the country is under martial law, even if Russia puts it as a pre-condition for negotiations. (Kyiv Independent)

3 January 2025 –

Pula Nikolao Pula is sworn in as Governor of American Samoa. (Samoa Observer)

SpaceX successfully launches the United Arab Emirates Space Agency's communications satellite Thuraya 4-NGS via a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, United States. (Space News)

3 January 2025 – 2025 PDC World Darts Championship

Luke Littler defeats Michael van Gerwen 7–3 in the final at Alexandra Palace in London, England, to claim his first World Darts Championship title, becoming the youngest player to win a world title at the age of 17 years. (BBC News)

2 January 2025 – Syrian civil war

Israeli invasion of Syria

Israeli warplanes carry out airstrikes on defense factories and a research center in Al-Safira, Aleppo Governorate, Syria. (Xinhua)

US intervention in the Syrian civil war

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, U.S. forces are deploying a new convoy to areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces in Kobani, Aleppo Governorate, as part of operations to establish a new US military base in north-eastern Syria. (SOHR)

2 January 2025 – Israel–Hamas war

Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip

Eleven people are killed, including a Hamas police chief, in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in al-Mawasi in the Gaza Strip. (BBC News)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announces that it has approved a delegation to Doha, Qatar for ceasefire talks. (Reuters)

2 January 2025 – Somali Civil War, War against the Islamic State

Islamic State insurgency in Puntland

Puntland forces conduct airstrikes on ISIL hideouts in Bari, Puntland, Somalia, after they announced a military offensive against ISIL and Al-Shabaab. (Idil News) (VOA)

2 January 2025 – 2025 New Orleans truck attack, 2025 Las Vegas Trump Hotel bombing

Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, says he believes that there is "no definitive link" between the two alleged U.S. Army servicemen perpetrators of the attacks, Shamsud-Din Jabbar in New Orleans and Matthew Alan Livelsberger in Las Vegas. (BBC)

2 January 2025 – German economic crisis

The Handelsblatt Research Institute reports that the German economy is in its "greatest crisis in post-war history" after projecting that the economy will enter its third year of recession in 2025 with a 0.1% contraction, following a 0.3% contraction in both 2023 and 2024. (TVP World)

2 January 2025 – 2025 Fullerton plane crash

A small plane crashes through the roof of a commercial warehouse in Fullerton, California, United States, causing a fire, killing two people and injuring at least 18 others. (KABC-TV) (AP)

2 January 2025 –

Two officers were injured in an explosion of an unknown object at a police fence in Berlin-Wittenau; the reasons for this are still unclear. (tagesschau)

2 January 2025 – Iran–Italy relations

Italy summons Iran's ambassador to demand the release of Il Foglio reporter Cecilia Sala, detained in Tehran for alleged legal violations. (AP)

2 January 2025 – Syria–Ukraine relations

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukraine will pledge support to the Syrian transitional government. (The Press Democrat)

2 January 2025 – 2024 Venezuelan political crisis

The government of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro offers a US$100,000 reward for the capture of exiled opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, who claims that he is ready to take office as the legitimate president on January 10. (El Universal) (El País)

2 January 2025 –

Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa decrees the suspension of his vice president Verónica Abad accusing her of contempt, and the handover of her functions to national planning secretary Sariha Moya. Noboa already appointed Moya to replace Abad in November 2024, but a constitutional judge reversed the decree in December. (Swiss Info)

The Parliament of Ghana prevents a potential government shutdown by approving a provisional budget of ₵68.1 billion ($4.65 billion) to fund government operations through March, amid a transition to John Mahama's presidency. (Reuters)

The Constitutional Court of Indonesia rules that the 20% electoral threshold for political parties to nominate a presidential candidate is not legally binding, potentially enabling smaller parties to participate in future presidential elections without the need to form coalition with larger parties. (Reuters)

The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, begins a historic three-day trip to Antarctica along with civil, scientific and military authorities. According to the Chilean Government, the codenamed Operación Estrella Polar III seeks to strengthen the country's presence in the territory. (Government of Chile)

Jenniffer González Colón takes office as Governor of Puerto Rico. (PBS)

2 January 2025 – 2025 in paleontology, Dinosaur finds in the United Kingdom

The largest site of dinosaur footprints of the Cetiosaurus and Megalosaurus dating back to the Middle Jurassic Bathonian stage 166 million years ago is discovered at a quarry in Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom. (BBC News)

1 January 2025 – Israel–Hamas war

Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip

Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip kill at least 26 Palestinians, including four children. At least ten others are missing and believed to be buried under rubble. (Al Jazeera)

1 January 2025 – 2025 New Orleans truck attack

A man kills 14 people and injures 35 others, including two police officers, in a vehicle-ramming and shooting attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, before being shot dead. The FBI says that it found an Islamic State flag in the suspect's vehicle. (Reuters)

1 January 2025 – Somali Civil War

The African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission, endorsed by United Nations Security Council on December 27, replaces the African Union Transition Mission as the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia. (Voice of Nigeria) (UN Press)

1 January 2025 – Public Domain Day, 2025 in public domain

The novel A Farewell to Arms and the cartoon characters Popeye and Tintin enter the public domain in the United States. (Rolling Stone)

1 January 2025 – 2022–2023 Russia–European Union gas dispute

Russia's gas firm Gazprom suspends exports of Russian natural gas through Ukrainian pipelines after Ukraine refused to renew the transit agreement between its operator Naftogaz and Gazprom. However, Hungary will continue receiving Russian natural gas via the TurkStream pipeline. (Reuters)

1 January 2025 – Foreign relations of Mexico

Mexico's Tax Administration Service implements new tariffs, including a 19% duty on goods from countries without international trade agreements with Mexico and a 17% duty on goods from Canada and the United States under certain value thresholds. (Reuters)

1 January 2025 – Moldova–Russia relations

As announced, Russia's Gazprom halts its gas supplies both to Moldova and the self-proclaimed Transnistrian republic alleging non-compliance with payment obligations. (bne IntelliNews), (Politico)

1 January 2025 – European migrant crisis

Twenty-seven migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are killed, and 83 others are rescued after two boats capsize off the Kerkennah Islands near Tunisia, with searches ongoing for additional missing passengers. (France 24)

1 January 2025 –

Three people are killed and over twenty others are injured in a fireworks explosion at a house in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. (CTV News)

1 January 2025 – Honduras–United States relations

Honduran President Xiomara Castro warns that she might remove all US military bases from Honduras and seek to cancel the military cooperation with the United States if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills his threat to order mass deportations of Hondurans when he takes office next January 20. (The Tico Times)

1 January 2025 – 2024–2025 German New Year's Eve pyrotechnics incidents

Five people are killed, several others are injured, and at least 330 people are arrested due to mishandling of pyrotechnics during New Year's celebrations in Germany. (RNZ) (1News)

1 January 2025 – 2025 Cetinje shootings

Twelve people are killed and four others are injured in a shooting spree in Cetinje, Montenegro. The perpetrator kills himself. (AP) (Al Jazeera)

1 January 2025 – Al Jazeera controversies and criticism

The Palestinian Authority suspends Al Jazeera's broadcasts and operations in Palestine, accusing the network of interfering in internal affairs and spreading incitement and misinformation. (Reuters)

1 January 2025 – Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia announces the execution of six Iranian nationals convicted of smuggling hashish. In Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Saudi ambassador in protest. (AP)

1 January 2025 – LGBTQ rights in Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein becomes the 39th country to legalize same-sex marriage. (GCN)

1 January 2025 – Trump International Hotel Las Vegas Tesla Cybertruck explosion

A Tesla Cybertruck containing firework mortars and gas canisters explodes outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada, United States, injuring seven people. The driver died from a self-inflicted gunshot prior to the explosion. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is currently investigating the incident as a possible terrorist attack. (ABC News)

1 January 2025 –

Five people are killed in a familicide mass stabbing when a son kills his four sisters and mother in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. (The Hindu)

Myanmar's Tatmadaw enacts a cybersecurity law imposing strict controls on digital communications, requiring service providers to store user data for three years, penalizing VPN use without government approval, and allowing authorities to block or shut down platforms deemed to spread disinformation or disrupt stability. (AP)

A police officer is killed and four other people are injured in a vehicle-ramming attack during a patrol in Nelson, New Zealand. A 32-year-old suspect is arrested. (AP)

Eleven people are injured during a mass shooting outside a nightclub in Queens, New York, United States. (The Nightly)

FBI agents announce the seizure of more than 150 homemade pipe bombs and other explosive devices from a home in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, United States, "the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history". (AP)

Bulgaria and Romania finalize the process of joining the Schengen Area and lift their land border controls. (AP)

Karin Keller-Sutter is sworn in as President of Switzerland. (Le News)

Poland takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union after Hungary. (Polsat News) (TVN24)

31 December 2024 – War against the Islamic State

Opération Chammal

The French Air Force conducts airstrikes against several Islamic State targets in Syria. (Le Parisien)

Somali Civil War, Puntland military offensives into ISIS

Ten Islamic State militants are killed by Puntland forces in an attempted attack involving suicide bombers on a military base in Dharjaale, Bari, Puntland, Somalia. This comes after the semi-autonomous region of Puntland announced a military offensive against the Islamic State and Al-Shabaab. (Garowe Online) (Reuters) (Idil News)

31 December 2024 – Red Sea crisis

The United States Air Force launches at least 12 airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen. (Al Jazeera)

31 December 2024 –

One crew member is killed and two others are missing after a cargo ship sinks in the San Bernardino Strait near Samar, Philippines. (News Central)

Puerto Rico experiences a power outage, impacting 1.3 million clients. (The New York Times) (NBC News)

31 December 2024 – French military withdrawal from West Africa

France–Ivory Coast relations

In his New Year's speech, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara announces that the French military base in Abidjan will be handed over to the Ivorian Government in January. (France 24)

France–Senegal relations

In his New Year's speech, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye announces the closure of French military facilities and the withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Senegal beginning in 2025. (Le Figaro)

31 December 2024 – 2024 Ecuadorian conflict

An Ecuadorian judge issues arrest warrants for 16 soldiers accused of the disappearance and murder of four children in Guayaquil after genetic tests confirm the charred remains found near a military base belong to the missing victims. (AP)

31 December 2024 – 2024 South Korean martial law crisis

The Seoul Western District Court issues an arrest warrant for impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol. (The Japan Times)

31 December 2024 – Belgrade school shooting

A Serbian court sentences the parents of a boy who killed 10 people in a Belgrade primary school in 2023 to over 14 years and three years in prison, respectively, for child neglect and abuse, and also sentences a shooting range instructor to 1 and a half years for perjury. (Reuters)

31 December 2024 – Capital punishment in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe approves a law abolishing the death penalty in the country, effective immediately. (BBC News)

31 December 2024 – Kivu conflict, Capital punishment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

A military tribunal in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, sentences 13 soldiers to death for charges including murder, looting, and cowardice, following territorial losses attributed to desertion during the conflict. (Reuters)

31 December 2024 –

Five people are wounded during a random mass stabbing amid New Year's Eve celebrations in Verucchio, Province of Rimini, Italy. The perpetrator is shot dead by a soldier. (Il Resto del Carlino)

A man steals an excavator in Grünsfeld, Germany, and rams the excavator against vehicles, injuring four police officers, before being shot dead. (DW)

30 December 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine

Prisoners of war in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Russia and Ukraine exchange hundreds of prisoners of war in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates. Ukraine says that many of those released by Russia are soldiers captured during the Siege of Mariupol in 2022. (BBC News)

30 December 2024 – Sudanese civil war

Battle of Khartoum

The Sudanese government says at least nine people have been killed and 121 others injured in shelling by the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum. (Sudan Tribune)

30 December 2024 – Israeli invasion of Syria (2024–present)

Israel Defense Forces operating in the Syrian side of the 1974 buffer zone, in Quneitra Governorate, advance into the Syrian town of Madinat al-Baath. (The Times of Israel)

30 December 2024 –

Trinidad and Tobago declares a state of emergency as gang violence escalates in the country, due to five people shot dead at a shop in Laventille, Port of Spain the previous day. (BBC News) (Al Jazeera)

Me (incomplete), described in userboxes...

This user created the User page design guide. Outlines comprise bullets like these This user started WikiProject Outlines. This user started Wikipedia's Help Project (as User:Go for it!). This user started WikiProject Health and fitness (as User:Go for it!). This user started WikiProject Indexes This user started WikiProject Glossaries This user proudly participates in WikiProject Lists mesoThis editor is a mesopedian. This user is not a prose nazi and sees no problem with a list or a table being on an article. A, B, and CThis user prefers the serial comma. inclThis user is an inclusionist. incrThis editor is an incrementalist. evenThis editor is an eventualist. This user has been on Wikipedia for 19 years, 2 months and 29 days. This user is a Wikipedia tipster. This user uses AutoWikiBrowser to quickly make repetitive edits. This user has made over 300,000 edits to Wikipedia.  35,000+ This user has created 35,000+ active redirect pages on the English language Wikipedia. This user has created over 500 Outlines in Wikipedia. This user is interested in the digital revolution. {{Wiki}}This user is an advanced writer in the MediaWiki language. This user develops user scripts; Perl-2This user is an intermediate Perl programmer. js-2This user is an intermediate JavaScript programmer. re-3This user writes advanced regular expressions. This user thinks you can learn a lot by editing an Encyclopedia. This user is a transhumanist. This user advocates humanism. This user is a member of the Geography WikiProject. Globus This user does not believe in borders, and is a World citizen. This user is interested in the Planet Earth. This user is interested in history. This user is interested in Human Prehistory This user is interested in ancient civilizations. This user is interested in ancient Egypt. This user is interested in ancient Greece. This user is interested in ancient Rome.

History and contributions...

Awards and praise I've received over the years...

Tip of the day April 21, 2006: Thanks for helping a newbie!

Filmcom 14:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I award this random acts of kindness Barnstar to Go for It! for being very helpful to a newcomer wikipedian, without being asked to.Filmcom 19:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I just want to thank you for building on my tip and making it a true wikipedia tip of the day. I'm still learning a lot about how to do things around here, so your help was greatly appreciated! Keep up the great work, and keep on Going for it!

Smashing!

Smashing job on Tip of the day!

You've done a great job getting the Tip of the Day off the ground. As a result, I think you deserve this! smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 17:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

This Working Man's Barnstar is awarded to Go for it! for your tireless and diligent work on the reference desk templates! -- Natalya 19:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

For going above and beyond the call of duty at Esperanza/Admin coaching, I award you this Original Barnstar. Good work! --Fang Aili ^talk 18:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Award

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Your kindess was not random, because you were kind enough to listen to my requests to fix my userpage. Your major kindness will not be ignored, as this BarnStar is my token of appreciation! Kyo catmeow! 01:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

!!!

<O.o --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 01:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. The Transhumanist 01:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		Awarded to User:The Transhumanist. Sometimes those who take on large areas of wikipedia organisation seem to be taken for granted, and this is just to show that your work is appreciated by the community. Khukri (talk . contribs) 09:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

!

Cool signature Kamope · talk · contributions 12:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.   The Transhumanist 05:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for the hints in your userpage tutorial. . I am a new user and familiar with HTML markup, but not so with Wikimark up. Your userpage tutorial really helped! Real96 06:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it useful. If you see any way to improve it, by all means, please feel free to do so.   The Transhumanist 06:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

WC

How can I sum the above up....? Oh yes:

		The Original Barnstar
		For your revamp of The Welcoming Committee, and of the Welcome Page, I award you the original barnstar. Well done! Anthonycfc [T • C] 18:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

WOW!!

as a near- noob, this is by far the most detailed and useful article on wikipedia for me! Excellent! I really wish I had a user page like this after two years...Snailey! 15:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For all your work with admin coaching, barnstar awarding, Wikipedia-expanding, and various administrative duties (if you can call all that political stuff we Wikipedians must wade through such a name), I, Sharkface217, hereby award you this Tireless Contributor Barnstar. Good job. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 19:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a few words...

TT, my friend, my mop would never have been gained without your incredible expertise. My kindest regards to you, and drop by as often as possible! Now, a little token of my appreciation...

The Golden Wiki Award;
This, the Golden Wiki Award, the highest attainment level of awards and barnstars, goes to you - The Transhumanist - for being one of the most helpful, kind, resourceful and generous Wikipedians I've had to utmost fortune to meet. Your contributions around the Wiki - at the WikiClassroom, in Dispute Resolution, at the Welcoming Committee, but most of all being a genuinely fun guy, are an amazing feat, and if half the trolls I'll undoubtedly meet after gaining my mop (thanks to you) took a leaf from your book, Wikipedia would be a nicer place.

My kindest possible regards,
Anthony 21:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		I award you this Brilliant Idea Barnstar for helping others to earn Barnstars and awards through your Award Center! • The Giant Puffin • 13:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Award

Hello The Transhumanist, (Hold on, can I say that or is it "Hello Transhumanist")
I was going to give you an award but there wasn't one good enough, so I made one better than any that has ever been seen before - This message. Yes, yes, I know, you don't think your worthy of it, but I assure you, you are the only one good enough for it - Pheonix 19:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

A Help:Contents Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		As the top contributor to Help:Contents, you deserve this barnstar. Thank you! Jreferee (Talk) 05:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For taking up the challenge and improving my command page, I, Sharkface217, hereby award you this Original Barnstar. Another feather in the Transhumanist cap, eh? :-P --Sharkface217 21:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

:D

Hi there Trans Face! X××x××pink×jellocreature××x××X (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You won an award!

X××x××pink×jellocreature××x××X (talk) awards you the unofficial funniness award!

Fractional-reserve banking

You deserve a barnstar for your efforts. I can't think of anyone who has contributed more to Wikipedia, except maybe Jimbo. I'm not sure where to put this on your frontpage, so here it is:

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		For boldly redirecting Debt-based monetary system to Criticisms of fractional-reserve banking, both saving it from deletion while defending Wikipedia from those who would violate WP:FRINGE, and being one of the most helpful editors on Wikipedia, in general. Zenwhat (talk) 03:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		I, Diligent Terrier, award you this "Tireless Contributor Barnstar" for your work in starting the List of basic American Civil War topics article from scratch. Great Job! DiligentTerrier • talk |sign here 22:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

My Userpage

Hi There First id like to thank you immensly for your pages about creating a decent userpage!! They are great and I would be lost without them!! Just one question, On my userpage i have a small welcome banner up the top. How do I make this text larger and change the font? Sorry if you have already covered this somewhere. Thanks in advanceCstubbies (talk) 12:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

A valuable service

I think you need recognition for doing the job of ten other editors, and doing it out of altruism and genuine belief in Wikipedia. Not many editors here have the same good attitude and provide the same service as you - I don't have any specific point to put across, but I thought you should just be prodded and reminded that you do a lot of good around here, in the hope you'll keep it up. Kudos! Seegoon (talk) 17:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

:)

		The Excellent Userpage Award
		Nice page. jaytur1 (talk · contribs) 12:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Welcoming committee

Just a note, I've made a minor update to your contributions. To reiterate my edit summary, you put in a tonne of effort there, and you deserve to be credited for it :) Feel free to revert, nonetheless. Regards, AGK (contact) 16:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

List of basic space exploration topics

Hi there TTH, Just wanted to thank you for your labors on this page, which is a great resource for us. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 17:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

You'd better hope there is a humour barnstar

... because you just gave me the biggest laugh in weeks. Good stuff giving that RfA spammer what-for here. αѕєηιηє ^t/_c 22:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

List of basic Canada topics

Nice work -- I will withdraw the AfD nom. – ukexpat (talk) 00:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Done

		The Barnstar of Recovery
		For saving List of basic Canada topics from being deleted, I - Milk's Favorite Cookie hereby award you this Barnstar! Congrats! - Milk's Favorite Cookie 01:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Fictional lists

The deletion review was approved for recreation: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 March 10. Just letting you know, in case you weren't watchlisting it. I'm not sure what you have to do next to get the old version undeleted though (if that's what you wanted :) Nice catch on rescuing that grouping. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

'Tis for you

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		I've noticed the extra mile you've gone to help a new user, and I wanted you to know it hasn't gone unnoticed. Keep up the good work! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		I award this barnstar to The Transhumanist, for being patient and taking four rounds of references from me, until they were all valid. LAAFan 01:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		I award this barnstar to The Transhumanist, for putting funny stuff on his discussion page which led me to copy them and put some of those funny stuff on my website. Thanks. Emir34 01:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

List_of_basic_France_topics

Hi Transhumanist, I wanted to note that I saw all of your work on the List of Basic France topics, and I appreciate it! Lazulilasher (talk) 02:12, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

From Zach...

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For helping me so many times. and for my wonderful userpage. Cheers, Zacharycrimsonwolf 04:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

(next page...)

Guidance Star

		The Guidance Barnstar
		For helping me to find resources on humanism, which I will hopefully be able to use to improve the articles on it here as well! Scapler (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Happy Transhumanist's Day!

The Transhumanist has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, so I've officially declared today as Transhumanist's Day! For your incredible organization and leadership skills, enjoy being the star of the day, dear The Transhumanist! Signed, Dylan (chat, work, ping, sign)

→ Dylan620 (Toolbox Alpha, Beta) 00:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Happy The Transhumanist's Day!

The Transhumanist has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as The Transhumanist's day! For your history of dedicated work to the project, enjoy being the Star of the day, The Transhumanist! Cheers, bibliomaniac15 22:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC) If you'd like to show off your awesomeness, you can use this userbox.

Congrats. :) –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I think...

...you need a barnstar for all of the hard work you have put into the WP:WPOOK!

		The Barnstar Barnstar
		You deserve two! at-210 discovered elements ∞ what am I? 20:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

Transhumanist my friend,

It's about time you deserve a barnstar for all your contributions to outlines on Wikipedia, and also for being the promoter that you are for outlines. If it wasn't for you we might not have outlines as they are, so it is my honor to present to you the Special Barnstar because no other barnstar could merit what you do for outlines on Wikipedia.  :-) Burningview (talk) 03:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

		The Special Barnstar
		This barnstar is presented to Transhumanist for all the hard work, contributions, coordination, and promotion he does in advancing the idea, coverage, content, and quality of Outlines on Wikipedia. For this he deserves a Special Barnstar Burningview (talk) 03:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Well done

		The Special Barnstar
		This award is in appreciation of the excellent work you have done supporting the development of Outlines on Wikipedia Thruxton (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Made me laugh

You once said in a AFD: "If you are building a robot, you can start with just the left pinky." I love that. Happy New Year! Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 20:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

another thanks

I appreciate you pointing me in the direction of a formatted signature. For some reason I couldn't find any reference to how it is done in the years I have been here. Cheers. ◦◦derekbd◦◦my talk◦◦ 12:16, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Impressed

I just wanted to tell you (probably not the 1st ^^ ) that your are an incredible wikipedia member, your userpage is simply amazing and your contribution is...gigantic? huge? Incredible? not for the number edits (still high) but rather over the appropriateness of the things that you have created, especially the outline project. I wont give you another award, you already have billions, but simply a modest "Bravo!". -- Offiikart (Talk) 05:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi, thanks a lot for the barnstar, you are truly a user with whom it is pleasant to interact. I greatly appreciate your help, your tips and you recognition on the work done, even if only very minimal compared to the work you have done.

I think you, more than everyone else, deserve a special recognition. Here is the first Barnstar I ever awarded :

		The WikiProject Barnstar
		To The Transhumanist who created the outline project and tirelessly continues to improve it. A special thanks for your help and your recognition. OffiikartTalk 13:54, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

ps. I did put the page alert on my watchlist

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Your fine contributions are not overlooked. You are a quality editor, and we are so glad you are here. Thanks to the user:Transhumanist! Pinkstrawberry02™ talk 01:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Note to user getting this message: Please respond on Pinkstrawberry02's talk page. If for some reason you cannot, please send them a {{talkback}} and reply on your own talk page. Thanks for your understanding in this manner. See ya around the wiki!

barnstar

		The Chess Barnstar
		Awarded for many contributions to chess articles, especially the Outline of chess. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks so much for your work on the Outline of domestic violence, it is so much better that it's astounding how far it's come along. Thanks for making my first outline "sing"! CaroleHenson (talk) 11:11, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

You're first one? Wonderful! I can't wait to see what you come up with next. And I also look forward to seeing what you have in store for this outline. Thank you for the barnstar. It's very nice to feel appreciated. The Transhumanist 22:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Wow! Thanks for your help on the Future studies project. I can't believe all the pages you've contributed to, but glad you found ours!... RealFuturist (talk) 17:09, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	Thanks for the ndashes on the Apple outline article. Zach Vega (talk) 00:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

A cookie for you!

Many years ago, back before I had created my current account, I created a humble little userspace navigation menu based off of two of your menus from the User Page Design Center (initially 15, but ultimately 6). Over the years it has grown, but I don't know if I ever would have started it without seeing your menus first. I just want to thank you for putting the effort into creating those menus and then sharing them at the Design Center where they have been helpful for people like me. I hope you don't mind me borrowing from your hard work! Thanks again and take care! Michael Barera (talk) 03:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Instructor's Barnstar
		This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. Just wanted to stop by and say this edit was something I wanted to do but simply did not have the "kahunas" to do so. Thank you for the bold edit :-) Moxy (talk) 07:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	For your efforts on updating, improving and organising Outline of human anatomy LT910001 (talk) 06:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For your work on "Outline of space science" Tetra quark (don't be shy) 05:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. The Transhumanist 07:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

A cup of coffee for you! masum (talk) 06:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. The Transhumanist 06:56, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

At Tip-Of-The-Day: Thank you for your updates & guidance!

Do have an e-cookie and enjoy!

Greetings The Transhumanist,

Want to let you know the value of your insights & feedback!
Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 21:53, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Keep up the good work. The Transhumanist 16:50, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Pony!

Pony!
Congratulations! For all your hard work on redirect repair at Glossary of North American horse racing and general wikignoming along the way of articles such as Easy Goer, you have received a pony! Ponies are cute, intelligent, cuddly, friendly (most of the time, though with notable exceptions), promote good will, encourage patience, and enjoy carrots. Treat your pony with respect and he will be your faithful friend! We need more wikipedia editors like you! Montanabw^(talk) 02:22, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

To send a pony or a treat to other wonderful and responsible editors, click here.

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

please help translate this message into the local language

The Cure Award

In 2015 you were one of the top 300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med Foundation for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a user group whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs, and we would love to collaborate further.

Thanks again :) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 03:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Great work with the Outlines :) Pratyush (talk) 21:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. The Transhumanist 15:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Love the outlines

Hi there! I just wanted to let you know that I think your planet outlines are really cool. I have long thought it was a shame that only Wikipedians seem to know about Books or Portals, because they are really great tools for structuring knowledge (while everyone loves diving down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, we could really do with some better content organization). The outlines strike me as a great way to bring that sort content organization to mainspace, where it will actually reach a large number of readers. I notice that I am the first one to edit them besides yourself, and I hope you know that I do so with love.

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		Great idea with the outline articles - a great solution to a need for better mainspace-based content structuring! I see from WP:Outlines that you actually came up with this concept some years ago, but this is the first I've noticed it. A2soup (talk) 02:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

		The Portal Barnstar
		The Portal Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have made significant contributions to topic portals. Awarded to Transhumanist for his overly enthusiastic efforts regarding the portal system and WikiProject Portals. – Lionel(talk) 11:02, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Transhumanist, thank you for your extraordinary efforts on behalf of portals. It reminds me of the time when a series of attacks on scientific bibliographies led to the formation of WikiProject Bibliographies. I don't understand why your detractors are so passionate about deleting portals, but your actions have been a model for how to deal with an attack constructively. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:10, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

		The Article Rescue Barnstar
		May all who see this barnstar know that The Transhumanist made a valiant and commendable effort for defending the portal namespace from deletion. It preserved countless hours of work initially invested into creating the content. Moreoever, The Transhumanist, is doing a yeoman's job in attempting to improve the content within with portal namespace. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:24, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: Thank you. I feel honored. Please keep in mind that I have not been working alone. Credit goes to the nearly 400 editors who came forward to speak up for the keeping of portals. And although the RfC to delete all portals is over, the job of defending portals from deletion is not. For the portal namespace to be retained in the long term, the portals in it will need to be improved to a worthy quality level, otherwise we may see more deletion attempts. This task is far more than a single editor can handle. Fortunately, many editors have come forward to meet the challenge. Working to develop portals and the entire portal system, is a team of 80 editors who are diligently redesigning, upgrading, updating, and maintaining portals. They are the members of the Portals WikiProject, and without them there might be no portals. They are doing a wonderful job, and I am very proud of them. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   17:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Precious

thinking-related topics

Thank you for organising a list of thinking-related topics, for Shift work sleep disorder and the index of oral health and dental articles, for your thoughts and efforts regarding portals, and beginnings such as Portal:Thinking/Selected picture, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:53, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Precious

portals

Thank you for your thoughts and efforts regarding portals, for the concept of outlines, for sectional redirects, for articles such as Life Extension Foundation, for service from 2006, including portal philosophy and user page design center, - repeating (1 & 4 June 2009): you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:54, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I looked, but couldn't figure out what 1 & 4 June 2009 were referring to. Just curious.    — The Transhumanist   19:26, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Follow the link "awesome W." and look for your name: 2 others said it before me! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Executive director of portals

		The Portal Barnstar
		Not sure if a simple barnstar can express the communities gratitude to the portal work that you're doing. Your an indispensable member of our community. Moxy (talk) 18:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Moxy, thank you. I'm honored, and I receive this praise for the team, without whom there would be very little progress on portals. They are literally transforming them into something new. I'm glad to be a part of that.    — The Transhumanist   18:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you

		The Portal Barnstar
		The Portal Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have made significant contributions to topic portals. Thanks for the great work you have been doing in the WikiProject. Dreamy Jazz talk | contribs 22:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

You are welcome, formerly Wpgbrown. Nice new name. ;)    — The Transhumanist   10:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	Good to see others of the view we have as to the need to know more. Im a research person here just of this week and your views relate to my work here. take care. Tleesd (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thank's for updating the Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church. You deserve this star for your good work. Catfurball (talk) 15:28, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For your excellent work on Portals. Everyday the portal project improves. Your dedication and willingness to get people involved really pays off. Cannot wait to continue working with you and the Portal team. Thank you for your work. AmericanAir88(talk) 00:30, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Thank you for helping me in my first attempt in creating a portal page ‑‑V.S.(C)(T) 10:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Some barnstars for you!

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for creating Portal:Hummingbirds when I asked for it. Keep doing a good job! Catfurball (talk) 00:01, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for making Portal:Capsicum. Catfurball (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for making Portal:Peaches. Catfurball (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for creating Portal:Woodpeckers for me. Catfurball (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for creating Portal:Tyrant flycatchers for me. Catfurball (talk) 19:16, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for creating Portal:Plums, you do a great job creating portals. Catfurball (talk) 18:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

	The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
	Thanks for creating Portal:Cotingas for me. Catfurball (talk) 19:07, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Portal Barnstar
		For your tireless dedication to creating, maintaining, and improving portals, as well as your active involvement in making improvements to the system of portals itself. I'm sorry to hear that you're temporarily unable to create them, but your work is greatly appreciated 🙂 Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 14:17, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you

		The Original Barnstar
		message Ambuj Shukla 19:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

You have made immense contributions to outlines over the years, and have encouraged many more Wikipedians to follow your lead. The impact of your contributions are great. Keep doing the good work! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ambujshukla2004 (talk • contribs) 19:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   00:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Outline Barnstar
		Hello The Transhumanist, you are receiving this award for the creation and continued dedication to WikiProject Outlines. You deserve this barnstar more than anyone. Jerium (talk) 19:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Good Humor
	I appreciate you reviving the User page design center! I used this when I was new. Also, everyone has a phases where they religiously obsess over their user page (especially userboxes), and this tool is a good way to show them how to have fun with it. Panini! • 🥪 23:59, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus