Reasons For Optimism 81-84

81. Airway made by 3D printer saves baby’s life.

82. The global poverty rate has dropped by half since 1990, and the absolute number of the absolute poor has dropped from 1.9 billion to 1.2 billion.

83. 31 Charts That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity. It’s a bit linkbaity, and some of the info is a little old or ambiguous or may be familiar to you already, but overall it’s pretty uplifting.

84. A solar plane is flying across the United States. It’s making lots of stops and going very slowly, and probably not even saving any energy since the alternating driver has to meet up at the stops, but it’s continuing to break various sorts of distance records and on pace for an around-the-world flight by 2015. Exciting proof-of-concept!