Daily Digest — October 29, 2026
Bleached coral recovered in seven weeks after touching a clone. NSW added 178,000 hectares to a koala park. Allegheny County signed 12 weeks of paid leave.
Good morning. Here's what's going right.
🌟 Today's Lead
The Touch
A healthy fragment ended up against a bleached one in a Stanford tank. The bleached piece coloured up. Danny Collins then ran it properly: five pairs that touched recovered in seven weeks, five pairs a few millimetres apart died. It works only between clones of the same colony. Nobody has tried it on a reef.
In Brief
🐨 The Park
The New South Wales Parliament passed the Great Koala National Park bill on 22 October. It adds more than 178,000 hectares of state forest, with an estimated 12,000 koalas. Combined with existing reserves, the estate is more than 475,000 hectares. The park has not opened. Carbon credits from the associated project cannot be sold to coal and gas.
👶 The Weeks
Allegheny County Council voted 11 to 4 for 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Sara Innamorato signed it on 22 October. Both parents. Birth, adoption, foster placement, and stillbirth. Employers with 15 or more workers pay. It is the first county law of its kind in the United States, and it is not in force yet.
⚡ The Share
US renewable generation in the first eight months of 2026 was 10.2 percent higher than a year earlier. Wind produced 333,367 gigawatt-hours. Solar produced 329,119. EIA figures put renewable capacity on a path from 37.7 percent to 40.4 percent within a year, past natural gas on nameplate. Capacity is not generation.
📊 Progress by Numbers
- Seven weeks. Bleached coral that touched a healthy clone recovered. The fragments that did not touch died.
- 178,000 hectares added in New South Wales. The park is not open.
- 12 weeks of paid parental leave in Allegheny County. Employers pay. Not in force yet.
- 10.2 percent. Renewable generation, January through August 2026, versus a year earlier.
- 40.4 percent. A projection of renewable capacity, not of electricity produced.
- Emcitate. The first drug for MCT8 deficiency. It does not fix the gene.
Also worth your time
On 28 September the FDA approved Emcitate, tiratricol, the first treatment for MCT8 deficiency. The broken transporter cannot carry thyroid hormone into cells. Tiratricol enters without it. The Federal Register published the rare-disease voucher on 28 October. It does not repair the gene.
A CCR8xCD3 antibody, published in Science Translational Medicine on 28 October, depleted regulatory T cells in human tumour samples and slowed breast, lung, and colon tumours in mice. Monkeys tolerated it. No patient has received it.
📻 On Today's Episode
Bright Side Daily for 29 October. Rory and Elizabeth. A coral fragment that coloured up, a koala park that is not open, 12 weeks of leave that are not in force, and a capacity figure that is not generation. The cards are a first drug for a broken transporter, and an antibody no patient has had.