Welcome to the week.
I hope all our American readers survived their Thanksgiving, whether that meant blissful family time or strategic bathroom breaks to get a few minutes of peace.
In case you missed it (totally understandable given the bombardment of Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails filling all of our inboxes right now), we published our 2025 Gift Guide over the weekend. It’s all stuff that we actually use, and love, and comes with the usual caveat of buying local, second-hand, and from small businesses as much as possible!
Get it here and keep your eyes peeled for our Charitable Giving Guide, which will drop later this week.
Alright, time to dive into what happened in the news while you were debating whether pumpkin pie counts as a vegetable.
This Week
And more.
Have a great week,
— Willow
{{active_subscriber_count}}+ people who give a shit got this post in their email, for free.
🙋♀️ Vote!
In the past month, this newsletter has helped me:
Last week, we asked: Do you talk about any of the topics we cover here (climate, public health, AI ethics, etc.) with family/friends during the holidays?
You said:
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, always (46%)
“I discuss topics on mental wellness, culture, health, finance and other writings shared. Most times I share excerpts or a website to ensure those I share with can view it for themselves and make connections per their lives.”
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Only if it comes up (29%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Actively avoid it (7%)
“We avoid a lot of topics for my sanity. We have too many stubborn people with different ideologies to open that can of worms.”
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ My family brings it up first (9%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Something else (write in!) (9%)
New Shit Giver Kay is here because “At 78 years old, I doubt I’ll change the world. But I can work on my little corner. I’m 1) writing my autobiography & I’m 2) a pretty spiritual creature. I think INI might be inspiration for me.“
Hell yes. Welcome!
🤝 Become an Important Member
We’re 100% independent and proudly supported by readers like you.
Members get a 30 day free trial to:
Ad-free everything
Your What Can I Do? profile: get and keep track of personalized action steps, connect with other Shit Givers
Vibe Check: Our news homepage, curated daily just for you. Never doomscroll again, thx
Seriously?: The frameworks, models, history, and pop culture we use to understand what’s happening now and next
Half Baked: Weekly briefs to help you think and act on specific, timely issues as they happen
Not Important: My favorite books, art, movies, music, apps, and more that have nothing to do with the jet stream slowing down
Lifetime thanks for directly supporting our work
⚡️ Climate change:
🌍 Was the COP30’s final text really a victory for climate? There’s a lot of back-patting going around, but without language about phasing out fossil fuels and with a lack of concrete mechanisms for financing or enforcement, it’s hard to tout it as real progress (Drilled)
🌎What COP30 did deliver on was some historic commitments to Indigenous peoples including a pledge to recognize land tenure rights over 160 million hectares and $1.8 billion in funding (although concrete pathways for climate finance, fossil fuel phaseout, and protections for land defenders are still lacking) (Mongabay)
As climate change continues to drive an insurance crisis, insurance companies are making money via consulting fees to help companies avoid disaster in the first place (Bloomberg)
More insurance news: homes in ZIP codes most exposed to climate risks like hurricanes and wildfires are now selling for an average of $43,900 less than they otherwise would due to a “reinsurance shock” that has roughly doubled rates since 2018 (Translation: climate change is literally devaluing your home) (The New York Times)
If the AI bubble bursts, billions in energy infrastructure projects could become stranded assets without some solid backup plans from policymakers (HEATMAP)
🦠 Health & Bio:
Your CPAP machine might be annoying, but it could also prevent Parkinson’s: A new study shows sleep apnea doubles your risk (The Washington Post)
Diagnosing endometriosis, a condition that affects over 11% of reproductive-age women in the US, takes on average 10 years. Some new non-invasive tests analyzing biomarkers in saliva and blood could dramatically reduce that (MIT Technology Review)
Make health care decisions for your body based on facts, not misinformation: hormonal birth control does carry a small increased breast cancer risk, but research findings are being distorted on social media into misleading claims that birth control is as bad as smoking (Undark)
Ozempic for everyone? Maybe not quite yet. We still don’t know a lot about GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, including their effects on brain health, their safety during and after pregnancy, and whether people need to take them indefinitely (MIT Technology Review)
An international conference for Long Covid highlighted research on biomarkers and disease mechanisms, including findings about immune system dysfunction, while also featuring clinical care innovations and updates on ongoing treatment trials for drugs like Paxlovid (The Sick Times)
💦 Food & Water:
🌏 Parts of India’s 5 largest cities are sinking due to groundwater overextraction, putting 2400 buildings at high structural damage risk, a number projected to exceed 23,000 within 50 years if trends continue (Mongabay)
The federal government is planning to close the 115-year-old Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, the country’s largest and oldest agricultural research complex, and disperse its operations nationwide, but critics say this will disrupt vital research, cost experienced scientists, and create logistical nightmares in relocating millions of specimens (The New York Times)
The shutdown revealed the federal government’s food and agriculture priorities by keeping commodity payments and pesticide approvals moving while pausing conservation programs and SNAP benefits (Civil Eats)
🌎 Brazilian coffee farmers are increasingly switching from mild arabica beans to bitter, more caffeinated robusta beans because they’re easier to grow under changing climate conditions (Bloomberg)
🌍 Development banks have invested over $1 billion since 2018 to promote industrial farming in sub-Saharan Africa, locking the region into decades of emissions instead of supporting climate-friendly pastoral and smallholder farming (The Conversation)
👩💻 Beep Boop:
Researchers have released the first generative AI model that can create novel protein binders for any biological target from scratch, marking a shift from AI that merely understands biology to AI that can engineer it (Translation: we’re moving from AI can read biology to AI can write biology) (MIT News)
Roblox’s CEO defended the platform’s child safety measures, despite lawsuits from three states and over 20 federal cases alleging the company enabled sexual exploitation of minors (The New York Times)
This dismissive attitude towards child safety concerns represents a broader industry pattern where tech leaders prioritize growth over guardrails and deflect accountability (bring back shame) (Platformer)
AI infrastructure companies in biology could shift biotech’s traditional focus on drug products to potentially lucrative technology platforms (The Century of Biology)
Music labels are shifting their strategy from suing AI startups for copyright infringement to entering licensing and partnering agreements with them instead (Platformer)
🌎 = Global news
Want to do something about all of this? Scroll down for action steps.
From kitchen experiments to modern medicine
Last week’s most popular Action Step was advocating for better policy and legislation that supports menstrual health by donating to Period (or starting a chapter in your community!).
Donate to the 19th, an incredibly diverse, indie non-profit newsroom reporting on gender, politics, and policy.
Volunteer with the Black Futures Lab to build political power at the local, state, and national level.
Get educated about how you can use your design skills to build a better future by finding opportunities using Design Gigs For Good.
Be heard about ending taxes on menstrual products in your state, because having a period isn’t a luxury.
🌍 Invest in projects that create a tangible impact for people and the planet with Roots of Impact.
🌎 = Global Action Step
NEW: Find the action steps that mean the most to you at WhatCanIDo.Earth
What if talking about menopause out loud was as normal as talking about sports scores or school pickup?
Imagine it in movie plots, in your group chat, at the clinic, and on the campaign trail because when we name what's happening in our bodies, three things can follow: better care, better research, and better policy.
Normalizing the conversation around something that's gonna happen to half the population isn't oversharing. It's infrastructure. This is how we're gonna get appointments that move the needle for people. This is how we're gonna get workplace benefits that actually matter and research dollars that finally match the need, especially for those most impacted and least studied. So what can I do to make menopause a public everyday conversation?
My guest today is Jennifer Gerson.
She's a journalist at the 19th, one of my favorite publications, and the author of their new menopause newsletter. Jennifer blends sharp reporting with practical scripts and memes on how to talk to your doctor or your partner or your teen or someone in HR, and maybe your elected representatives too, because you know we love that. So that this thing that's been so intensely private and understudied, on purpose, becomes public. And so progress compounds.
This one can definitely change the conversation in your home and far, far beyond it.
📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.
▶ Or watch the full episode on YouTube.
A literary scholar explains how ancient myths shape modern AI
This month, Maddie Stone interviewed Nina Beguš, research and lecturer at UC Berkeley and author of the new book Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI.
They dive into how fictional narratives shape the tools we make, including AI, and why telling different stories is important to building AI that actually supports better infrastructure and social services that we all can collectively benefit from, instead of just sexy, subservient chatbots.
It’s a really fascinating conversation, and you should check it out!
💌 Loved this issue of It’s Called Science?
Check out what else we make (or take it easy on the emails, we get it) right in your Subscriber Preferences.
🤝 Thanks for reading. Here’s how we can help you directly:
☎️ Work with Quinn 1:1 (slots are extremely limited) - book time to talk climate strategy, investing, or anything else.
🎯 Sponsor Important, Not Important - reach {{active_subscriber_count}} (and counting) sustainably-minded consumers across our newsletters, web, and audio.