Hey everyone!

Today's edition covers three very different aspects, and since it also happens to be World Animal Day, of course we also got an animal story for you.

There's a cochlear implant that disappears entirely beneath the skin, a wildlife comeback in Mexico that started with just 23 bison, and some overdue funding for the crises the world has mostly moved on from.

Grab something to drink and read on!

When people think of cochlear implants, they usually picture the small device worn behind the ear. What most don't realize is that this outer part has to come off every night, every shower and every swim.

Now there's a new way to do it.

On September 29, the Austrian company MED-EL launched TICI UNICO (short for Totally Implantable Cochlear Implant), the first cochlear implant on the market with every single part under the skin.

Sound travels through a thin layer of skin to a tiny implanted microphone behind the ear, which passes it on to the hearing nerve. Users charge it with a small pad on their head for about an hour, and a full charge lasts up to 40 hours.

The obvious benefit is that nobody can see it. But the people involved say the bigger deal is hearing around the clock: an alarm at night, a baby crying in the next room. One early user says she can finally swim with her kids without worrying about her device. MED-EL says the idea goes back to its first implant work in the 1970s, when no battery or microphone small enough even existed.

To be clear, it's not for everyone yet. It's currently approved only for adults in Europe, and replacing the battery would mean another surgery. Long term data is still being collected. 

Competitor Cochlear has just finished recruiting patients for trials of its own fully implanted system. There's something really nice about a decades old idea finally turning into something people can actually get.

When most people picture wild bison, they think of Yellowstone or the Great Plains. Mexico probably isn't the first place that comes to mind. But bison once roamed the grasslands of northern Mexico too, until hunting and habitat loss pushed them almost completely out of the country.

Now they're back, and the herd keeps growing.

In 2009, 23 bison made the trip from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota to Rancho El Uno, a reserve in the Janos grasslands of Chihuahua. Mexico's protected areas agency and local conservation groups have looked after them ever since. Today, around 480 bison live there, about twenty times the original herd.

And bison do a lot more than graze. Ecologists call them ecosystem engineers. Their grazing helps native grasses grow back, their wallows collect rainwater for other animals, and their dung has brought back beetles that bury it and fertilize the soil.

The herd is now big enough to start new ones. In February, 29 bison were moved to a reserve in the neighboring state of Sonora. Two months later, one of the females gave birth to what's reported to be the first bison calf born in Sonora in around 200 years.

When we hear about a humanitarian crisis in the media, we often assume the money follows. A disaster makes the news, donations come in, aid arrives. But for a lot of long running crises, that's not how it works. Attention fades, budgets get cut, and aid groups end up deciding who they can still help. 

That's exactly the gap a fund from the UN was built for.

On October 2, the UN released $160 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund, or CERF, to 12 of the world's most underfunded crises. Think of CERF as a global emergency savings account: countries pay in ahead of time, so the UN can send money out fast instead of waiting for new donations.

The biggest shares go to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, at $18 million each, followed by Sudan, Somalia and South Sudan. Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Cuba are on the list too. Another $10 million is set aside for people with disabilities across all 12 crises, who are often the hardest to reach.

And where the money goes isn't guesswork. The UN weighs more than 100 indicators, from hunger levels to how much funding a crisis already has.

Now, to be honest, $160 million is small next to what's needed. CERF aims for $1 billion a year and has reached $483 million so far in 2026. UN relief chief Tom Fletcher also says money alone won't fix it: in five of these places, aid groups first need safe access just to reach people.

We read your feedback that you sent for this newsletter (thank you!). So here you can find additional information about these stories:

Alright, that's it for today! Hope you're having a great World Animal Day, and that this edition made it just a little bit better.

Luis & Freddy🌻

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