The Age of Depopulation.

The future of cancer prevention.

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News Items is “the most valuable newsletter out there.” — Peggy Noonan.

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1. Nicholas Eberstadt:

Although few yet see it coming, humans are about to enter a new era of history. Call it “the age of depopulation.” For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline. But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people.

With birthrates plummeting, more and more societies are heading into an era of pervasive and indefinite depopulation, one that will eventually encompass the whole planet. What lies ahead is a world made up of shrinking and aging societies. Net mortality—when a society experiences more deaths than births—will likewise become the new norm. Driven by an unrelenting collapse in fertility, family structures and living arrangements heretofore imagined only in science fiction novels will become commonplace, unremarkable features of everyday life.

Human beings have no collective memory of depopulation. Overall global numbers last declined about 700 years ago, in the wake of the bubonic plague that tore through much of Eurasia. In the following seven centuries, the world’s population surged almost 20-fold. And just over the past century, the human population has quadrupled.

The last global depopulation was reversed by procreative power once the Black Death ran its course. This time around, a dearth of procreative power is the cause of humanity’s dwindling numbers, a first in the history of the species. A revolutionary force drives the impending depopulation: a worldwide reduction in the desire for children. (Source: foreignaffairs.com, aei.org, italics mine)

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2. John Burn-Murdoch:

Measuring public opinion among small and hard-to-reach groups is challenging. But this week a groundbreaking new study by the think-tank UK in a Changing Europe and polling company Focaldata did just that, shedding light on the wide range of attitudes and priorities among different minority groups in Britain. It found that they were often closer to the conservative than progressive end of the spectrum.

The situation is similar in the US, where the sharp leftward turn among educated white liberals has caused white Democrats to overshoot the minority position on a growing number of issues, including immigration, racism, patriotism and meritocracy.

White progressive Americans now hold views on these culture questions that are completely out of line with the average Black or Hispanic voter, according to analysis from pollster Echelon Insights. (Sources: ft.com, focaldata.com, echeloninsights.com)

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3. Researchers are making progress toward vaccines that train healthy people’s immune systems to eliminate signs of cancer before it develops. Vaccines are in early trials for people with inherited genetic mutations that put them at a greater risk. Other shots are designed to destroy precancerous lesions to stop full-blown disease.  “It’s the future of cancer prevention,” says Dr. Ajay Bansal, a gastroenterologist at the University of Kansas Cancer Center. He is testing three vaccines for people with Lynch syndrome, a genetic condition that carries up to an 80% risk of developing colorectal cancer, often before age 50. The trial is part of a cancer-vaccine renaissance. (Source: wsj.com)