Volcanoes are erupting in The Philippines, but on-fire Australia received some welcome rain. The Iran war cries have been called off and The Donald’s military powers are about to be hamstrung by the Senate. Meanwhile, his impeachment trial is starting, and we’re all on Twitter for a front-row seat.
What Could Go Right? 2026: 3 Things to Look Forward To
Back to the moon, acid for anxiety, and making the world skinny again
Emma Varvaloucas
This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here.
3 Things to Look Forward To in 2026
2026 is off to a deeply unnerving start. Yet there are still some things we are anticipating this year with excitement rather than trepidation. (For what it’s worth, our 2025 picks turned out to be pretty solid.) Without further ado…
We Are Going Back to the Moon
The US hasn’t sent astronauts to the moon since 1972. But after years of delays and spiraling costs, NASA’s Artemis 2 mission will launch sometime in the first few months of this year, potentially as early as February. The mission is designed to fly four astronauts around the moon once. Future ones aim to eventually establish a permanent outpost on the moon’s southern polar region—if China doesn’t get there first.
One thing that could help: After Congress stepped in, NASA survived the Trump administration’s suggested budget cuts—of 50%—nearly unscathed. Their 2026 fiscal budget shows a cut of just 1%. | Read more
Acid for Anxiety
Last year brought us the first trial demonstrating that the psychedelic drug LSD, in a single high dose, could relieve moderate to severe anxiety for up to three months. This year, two major follow-up trials will conclude. If their results are anything like the first’s, LSD may become available in the US as an alternative anxiety treatment to antidepressants and talk therapy sometime in 2027. | Read more
Ozempic vs. Obesity
After rising for years, the American obesity rate fell in 2025, as GLP-1 injectables like Ozempic became popular. (The change represents an estimated 7.6 million fewer obese adults compared with three years ago, according to Gallup.) These drugs, which are already turning the tide on the obesity epidemic, are set to become more affordable, accessible, and potentially more potent this year.
The first GLP-1 pill became available in the US on Monday, and approval for a second pill is coming soon. Globally, patents are expiring this year for semaglutide, the protein active in the first formulations of modern weight-loss drugs. This will free up manufacturers in a number of large countries, such as Brazil, Canada, and Turkey, to produce cheaper generic versions. Better still: new drugs, which led to greater weight loss than their predecessors in early stage trials, are also being tested.
By the Numbers
>97%: Share of new vehicle sales in Norway that are electric
43: Countries that have decoupled economic growth from emissions
$2.2T: Amount of clean energy investment the world is expected to have reached in 2025, a record
Quick Hits
🌋 The interior of Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano has been mapped in 3D for the first time. Most of the world’s most active volcanoes have already been mapped in detail, but not this one, whose eruption would affect millions of people.
🧠 Dementia cases will rise as the American population ages, but not nearly as much as previously thought, according to a new study. In fact, rates have decreased as education access and medical treatments have improved.
👶 Brazil has eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV, the largest country in the Americas to do so.
💉 A vaccine for Nipah virus has entered Phase 2 trials for the first time. The disease is rare but has a 75% fatality rate, and no vaccines or treatments exist.
🚗 Congestion pricing is . . . working? Parts of Manhattan are showing significant drops in pollution, traffic has declined, and revenue is in the hundreds of millions.
📱 Social media for good (for a change): A pilot program is leveraging it to find living kidney donors.
👀 What we’re watching: The Biden administration recommended it and the Trump administration will push it through: marijuana’s reclassification as a less dangerous drug.
TPN Member Originals
(Who are our Members? Get to know them.)
- Indy-pendence | The Edgy Optimist | Zachary Karabell
- In defense of slop | The Roots of Progress | Jason Crawford
- What I wish I’d known when I was younger | The Atlantic ($) | Arthur C. Brooks
- The overlooked power of nostalgia in organizations | Flourishing Fridays | Clay Routledge
- To Trump, on Venezuela: You break it, you own it | NYT ($) | Thomas L. Friedman
- Why we fall for narcissistic leaders, starting in grade school | NYT ($) | Adam Grant
- We’re living through the Great Detachment | NYT ($) | David Brooks
- Willpower doesn’t work. This does. | NYT ($) | Angela Duckworth
- America’s real source of patriotism has been clear for 250 years | WaPo ($) | Theodore R. Johnson
- The economic collapse that never happened | WaPo ($) | Zachary Karabell
- Trump’s doctrine is ‘Make America Small Again’ | WaPo ($) | Fareed Zakaria
- Talking about love, part 1 | The Renovator | Anne-Marie Slaughter
- After neoliberalism: From left to right | The Renovator | Danielle Allen
- A year of real progress for kids | After Babel | Jonathan Haidt
- Flip the script: People want more democracy, not less | Lucid | Ruth Ben-Ghiat