how social media transforms our reading habits + why people are nicer than you think

🤩 positive news

CRISPR has been touted as ‘the next big thing’ for years, but its first real-world impact was realised in 2023, when patients with sickle-cell disease saw their symptoms vanish after getting the first FDA-approved CRISPR treatment. Now, the tech is accomplishing something even more impressive by helping to tackle rare genetic disorders where every patient is likely to have a completely different mutation. Diseases with only 50 known cases worldwide – the kind pharma companies usually ignore because they won’t make a ton of money off them – are being addressed with CRISPR. It’s especially handy because researchers don’t have to rebuild a gene therapy from scratch every time, they can reuse most of the original components and just swap out one detail (the guide RNA) to match each patient’s DNA. A patient known as ‘baby KJ Muldoon’ is the first child to receive a customised CRISPR treatment for a rare urea-cycle disorder. His recovery proved the model works and has inspired a new FDA pathway to fast-track personalised therapies. Trials using this approach will begin soon, offering hope that today’s ‘miracle cures’ could one day become standard care for people and families battling rare diseases globally.

People are nicer than you think – vox
If you’ve ever walked away from a social interaction thinking you came across as total weirdo, you’re not alone. But psychologists say that your way of thinking is probably wrong. The shared human experience of feeling like you fumbled what could’ve been a great conversation is called the ‘liking gap’. It explains the weird, universal habit humans have of assuming people like us less than they actually do. This stems from our tendency to undershoot how empathetic people are, how happy they’ll be to hear from us, or how much they’d appreciate an act of kindness. Kids start observing the liking gap as young as four, and (rather unluckily) it can follow us well into adulthood. One wild example of pure human kindness can be found in wallet-drop studies, which show that strangers return lost wallets way more than people expect… even when there’s cash inside. That gap between reality and what we think people will do harms our social lives over time, because when we assume others won’t care, we don’t text first, don’t compliment people, or refuse to open up. This leads us to feel even lonelier. The fix is a conscious effort to change our thinking and behaviours. Concrete data shows that people are kinder than we give them credit for, but we can only start to believe that by giving others the chance to prove it.

👩‍💻 tech talk

Right in time for Christmas, Canva has gifted the design world Affinity completely free, forever. After buying Serif last year, Canva rebuilt Affinity into a single app that combines vector, pixel, and publishing tools into one space, which means no more hopping between apps or juggling file types. Everything lives in one streamlined studio that is built for how designers work today. Canva says it isn’t aiming to replace professional designers, it wants to expand what’s possible for both newbies and long-time designers. Canva’s head of EMEA, Duncan Clark, says making Affinity widely accessible will be like when home computers started entering people’s homes – once more people had access, experts became even more essential. With Affinity’s new identity and faster performance, Canva is betting designers will appreciate a tool that’s powerful without a steep price tag. With creatives used to pricey subscriptions and slow innovation, free Affinity software is definitely a welcome treat!

The Warner Bros ownership race could drastically change streaming – thred
The big news that Netflix was about to bag Warner Bros for $83 billion has been trumped by Paramount’s insane offer of $108.4 billion to scoop up everything Warner Bros owns, including its streaming platform, studios, and the old-school TV networks Netflix wasn’t even interested in. Paramount has an advantage, with its pitch valued at about $30 a share (vs Netflix’s $27.75), not to mention CEO David Ellison is warning that Netflix’s deal is anti-competitive and bad for Warner Bros shareholders. Netflix clearly wants to hoard the libraries of HBO, DC, and other mega-franchises like Harry Potter and Batman. And although Paramount is offering more cash upfront for a ‘business as usual’ bundle, that could mean cost-cutting later (or higher subscription costs for users) to pay off the giant price tag. Regardless of who wins, it looks like the future of TV and film is destined to be dominated only a few mega-company… and if we’re being honest, that might not be a good thing.

🌍 world news

After two years of relentless Israeli bombardment, the level of destruction in Gaza is overwhelming. More than 123,000 buildings have been flattened, another 75,000 damaged, and an estimated 68 million tons of debris still lays on the ground. Beneath the rubble are thousands of unexploded bombs and the bodies of roughly 10,000 people who are still missing, making the cleanup job a massive and dangerous task. The U.N. Development Program is supposed to lead the removal effort, but Gaza currently has only a handful of working machines, comprised of nine excavators, one crusher, and a few dozen trucks and loaders. To start the job, Israel would need to allow in heavy equipment, which seems unlikely because it claims any dual-use machinery will be used to build Hamas tunnels. Even in the best scenario, clearing Gaza could take five to seven years, cost billions, and rely on outside funding that no one has committed to yet. Hamas has said that the ceasefire cannot progress while Israel continues to violate current agreements, which Gaza authorities say number at least 738 since the truce began 60 days ago. In the meantime, over 2 million Palestinians are forced to live in tents while enduring winter storms.

Satellite images show the scale of destruction from Asia floods – al jazeera
Asia has been slammed by nonstop tropical storms and monsoon rains in the last few months, causing floods and landslides that have torn through Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. More than 1,800 people have died in South and Southeast Asia while millions of others have been displaced. Indonesia has been hit the hardest, with local authorities saying the situation is so bad that people are suffering from starvation because aid isn’t reaching them fast enough. Environmental experts say illegal logging and palm-oil–driven deforestation have made the floods even worse. Sri Lanka is currently recovering from Cyclone Ditwah, its most destructive storm in a century, with over 600 people dead and more landslides expected as rain continues to fall on its highlands. Thailand and Malaysia are also flooded, with dozens of provinces underwater and thousands evacuated. The Asian Development Bank published a report warning that climate-driven water disasters are only going to hit the region harder in years to come, stating that billions of people are at risk. In 2025, it’s never been more evident that intense and prolonged weather fronts are becoming the new normal, and without proper funding, entire regions will struggle to adapt.

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Speak to you soon,