Bryan Walsh

Editorial director @voxdotcom, for Future Perfect, tech/climate and world teams. Author of END TIMES. Email [email protected]

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

This ran first in Good News, my weekly newsletter on actual progress (and other good things) around the world. Sign up here:
https://t.co/e73uC0aRrw

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

New from me in my @voxdotcom Good News newsletter: 10 reasons the World Cup is the greatest sporting event on Earth. Most big events don't live up to their names (looking at you, "World" Series). This one does. And not even FIFA, the worst sporting body alive, can ruin it.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

Where else does a 0-0 draw count as a nation's greatest-ever achievement? (Hello, Cape Verde, population 529,600.) Where else do European tourists fall in love with ranch dressing and gas stations the size of Luxembourg? And we've only just begun:
https://t.co/gMEf8sTQsc

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

No drug reverses dementia today. That doesn't make us helpless. The full story ran first in Good News, my weekly newsletter on progress around the world — sign up here: https://t.co/NAPh2l4T5n

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

I turned 48 this week, which means dementia has stopped feeling abstract. My new piece for @voxdotcom Future Perfect and my Good News newsletter: total cases will keep rising as the population ages, yet your odds at any given age have been falling for decades.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

A 2024 Lancet commission estimated up to 45 percent of dementia could be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 risk factors, and the window that matters most is midlife. There's also a growing run of studies linking the shingles vaccine to lower dementia risk.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

My latest for @voxdotcom Future Perfect on the quiet revolution happening in oncology—and what's at stake if we let it stall: https://t.co/COYoT6zydE

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

At ASCO last week, a roomful of oncologists gave a 42-second standing ovation to a line graph. Why? A drug that nearly doubled survival in advanced pancreatic cancer—one of the deadliest cancers we know. I wrote about why this might be the most hopeful cancer news in years. 🧵

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

But there's a catch. Nearly every breakthrough traces back to federally funded basic research—the very thing being throttled right now. Cutting NIH and NSF grants to save dollars risks losing the discoveries that save lives, just as cancer research is finally paying off.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

The cost: we keep arguing about noise and water tables instead of the real question — what we want from AI, and how to make it expand human agency rather than shrink it. 👇
https://t.co/rtK0tnWO9e

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

Seventy percent of Americans now say they'd oppose a data center being built near them — the environment tops their list of concerns.
But @mbolotnikova's new piece for @voxdotcom Future Perfect argues the revolt is really about something else entirely: AI.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

So why the fight? Killing a data center in your town feels like the only lever an ordinary person can pull to slow AI down. Congress has passed nothing. A local zoning hearing becomes the one place the battle can actually happen.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

Each home built near jobs and transit needs roughly $21,000 less in upfront infrastructure than one at the edge of town — and the maintenance savings pile up for decades. The fiscal case for building up instead of out: https://t.co/80aP4Vq4HI

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

New from @mbolotnikova for @voxdotcom Future Perfect: one of the quieter reasons your property taxes keep climbing is sprawl. A new report finds compact neighborhoods cost cities about half as much to maintain as the same housing built at the urban fringe.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

None of this makes college a sure thing — underemployment and major choice matter a lot. But graduating still puts you on a better path than skipping it, even in 2026. The full case: https://t.co/j3UhIsFVAV

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

It's graduation season, and the mood is grim: a late-2025 poll found 63 percent of voters think a college degree isn't worth it, & the class of 2026 is supposedly doomed. New by me in @voxdotcom Future Perfect, I dug into the numbers — and I think the doomers have it backwards.

[Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalsh]

2026 is a bad time to graduate. So was 2001, when I graduated straight into the dot-com crash. 2010 was worse. Recession scarring is real, but it does fade. You can't pick the year you graduate — but you can pick whether you finish. Finishing still pays.