There is nothing quite like a British train journey to test your outlook on life. A bit of wind, a points failure down the line, and suddenly half the trains are cancelled. You end up wedged into a single short carriage train carrying two full loads of crammed, miserable passengers. And no buffet because staff couldn’t get to work (which reminds me of an old Billy Connolly joke; ‘how does the man who drives the snowplough get to work in the morning….?’)
I was stuck on one of those delayed trains this week, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, when I pulled out the October to December print edition of Positive News. Reading about human progress while trapped - again - in the middle of infrastructure collapse felt like an almost surreal contrast. While our transport network was falling apart, quiet teams of scientists, engineers, and medics were out there actually fixing things.
Here are three stories from the magazine that made the claustrophobic journey entirely worthwhile.
A Ray of Light for Macular Degeneration
This one is personal. My mum lives with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Watching someone you love lose their central vision is really really hard. It is a quiet, relentless condition that strips away the simple pleasures of reading a book, recognising a face across the room, or watching a sunset.
Reading about two new European Union approvals for AMD implants gave me genuine hope:
For Dry AMD (Geographic Atrophy): The EU approved the PRIMA System, an ultra-thin 2mm photovoltaic chip developed by Science Corporation. It sits under the retina and pairs with camera-equipped glasses that project near-infrared light onto the chip, converting light into electrical signals sent directly to the brain. In clinical trials published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 84 percent of participants regained the ability to read letters, numbers, and words. The CE mark now covers 30 European countries.
For Wet AMD: Roche’s Susvimo device received its EU CE mark. Instead of patients enduring painful monthly eye injections, this refillable implant continuously releases medication directly into the eye, requiring a quick refill procedure only twice a year.
Knowing that technology is reaching a point where 84 percent of trial patients can read again brings huge comfort. It is a massive leap forward for millions of families dealing with sight
AI Doing Actual Good: A Second Pair of Eyes in Surgery
We talk a lot on The Third Half about cutting through tech hype. Half the internet is trying to sell us AI agents to write emails nobody asked for, while the other half warns of impending apocalypse. But neurosurgeons at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London showed us what AI looks like when it is built for genuine human care.
Rhys Hibbert, a 48-year-old father of two, had an 11mm non-cancerous pituitary tumour pressing against his optic nerves and carotid arteries.
During an endoscopic procedure led by Professor Hani Marcus and Mr Daniel Khan, a bespoke AI system developed at UCL analysed the live camera feed in real time on a second screen. Trained on hundreds of annotated surgical videos, the AI tracked instruments and highlighted hidden critical structures like major blood vessels and optic nerves in colour-coded overlays. It acted as an expert second pair of eyes while the human surgeons retained complete operational control.
When Rhys woke up, his vision was dramatically restored, and he was walking independently within a week. That is what tech for good actually looks like - enhancing human expertise to save a father's sight.
The Serious Business of Wee-Cycling
Finally, a story that made me smile before making total practical sense.
If you have ever attended the London Marathon, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, or a music festival like Boomtown, you know that managing crowd wastewater is a massive headache. Bristol-based start-up NPK Recovery is pioneering a solution called - yep - "wee-cycling".
Using urine-diverting toilets and mobile processing units, NPK Recovery extracts and concentrates nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium on-site using bacterial treatment and heat. There are no harsh synthetic chemicals involved, bypassing energy-heavy industrial processes. The result is a completely pathogen-free, odourless liquid fertiliser.
Backed by a £435,627 Forestry Commission grant, they partnered with Welsh charity Stump Up for Trees to feed 4,500 native British trees, including beech and Scots pine, at a nursery near Abergavenny.
It lightens the load on sewage systems, prevents river pollution, and replaces imported chemical fertilisers. It is funny, clever, and profoundly useful. Let me say it again - ‘wee-cycling’….
A Final Thought
Sitting on that delayed train, squeezed between damp coats and luggage, reading about these innovations was a great reminder that real progress happens when human ingenuity meets purpose.
Have you come across a story or innovation recently that restored your faith in human cleverness?
Drop a comment below, as I would love to hear about it.