Xenobiology. Catholic schools. When will we have artificial wombs? Old MacDonald meets Big Brother. Weird little guys. Malaria vaccines. The most important part is knowing when to quit. What’s going on with the kids these days? Unleash the DFC. All about GLP-1s. Urban planning, Weber-style. Of course the AI labs are lying to you

Asterisk is a quarterly journal of clear writing and clear thinking about things that matter (and, occasionally, things we just think are interesting). In this issue:

• Georgia Ray explains how microbiologists uncover hidden microbial worlds within us.
• The Editors curated diverse perspectives on growth and change across global development, technology, medicine, and education.
• Greg Justice forecasts the future availability of GLP-1 weight loss drugs in the US through 2030.
• Andrew Herscowitz explains how Power Africa revolutionized development finance by taking a transactional approach, leveraging public-private partnerships, and breaking down interagency barriers to bring electricity to 200 million people in Africa.
• Sarah Eustis-Guthrie and Ben Williamson wrote about why they shut down their Maternal Health Charity in Ghana after realizing their postpartum family planning program was not having the intended impact on pregnancy rates.
• Constance Li explores how precision livestock farming technologies could reshape animal agriculture and impact the welfare of billions of farmed animals worldwide.
• Dietrich Vollrath examines how the types of cities in developing countries may impact their economic growth potential, contrasting producer and consumer cities and exploring the effects of rapid urbanization.
• Karthik Tadepalli argues that to drive economic growth in developing countries, policymakers should focus on helping firms expand rather than supporting small businesses or microenterprises.
• Henrik Karlsson explores how Jesuit colleges and Montessori schools deliberately cultivate distinct cultures to enhance learning, examining their methods for scaling up these cultures without diluting them.
• Lawrence Chan exposes how leading AI companies use misleading tactics in their press releases to exaggerate their models' capabilities and performance compared to competitors.
• Matt Reynolds explores the concerning trend of declining happiness among children in Western countries and its potential long-term impacts on their adult lives and society as a whole.
• Sarah Constantin explores the future of reproductive technologies and their potential impacts on society and childbirth.
• Adrian Tchaikovsky explores the unintended consequences of human exploitation on an alien world's delicate ecosystem in his science fiction story "Sins of the Children".

A huge thank you to everyone in the community who helped us make Asterisk a reality. We hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.