THERE are many who believe, as this decade comes to a close, that the world is going to hell in a handcart. The failure to take dramatic action on climate change, the perceived coarsening of public debate, the rise of instantly transmitted fake news and populist movements that rail against experts and facts are all taken as evidence that humanity is in the grip of a downward spiral. We know you, as readers of New Scientist, share our love of evidence and rational problem-solving. So you probably already know that the facts don't support this narrative. In fact, by most measures, the world is getting better – for humans at least.

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg has been named one of the ten most influential people in science in 2019 by the journal Nature. The 16 year old has been named alongside a neurologist who brought pig brains back to life and a palaeontologist who shook up humanity's family tree. The prestigious British science journal, which celebrated its 150th anniversary this year, says the Swedish campaigner'channelled the rage of a generation'. She had outshone scientists who couldn't'galvanise global attention' the way she did and many are cheering her along, according to Nature. The ten most influential list also includes a physicist building quantum computers, a biologist editing genes in adult humans and a microbiologist fighting Ebola.