Most frightening stories:

• According to a UN-affiliated study, “Conflict will remain a major driver of food insecurity in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, while drought is likely to worsen crop and livestock output, increasing food insecurity in countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya”
• BREAKING NEWS: Global warming is cause by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Seriously.
• That big California earthquake is still coming.

Most hopeful stories:

• There was a slate of hopeful climate news this month (I couldn’t bring myself to pick just one, or even just three of these.) Long-promised smaller, safer, more modular nuclear reactors are starting to come to market. Maybe nuclear waste can be stored safely and cheaply in deep horizontal tunnels. There’s a new X-Prize for turning carbon emissions into useful products. Coal really is losing out to renewables. And Exxon may eventually pay for its climate crimes.
• It’s possible that your brain could be scanned at a high resolution so that your consciousness can be revived far in the future. The down side is that scientists would have to kill you first to do that with anything similar to current technology. Well, technology does have a tendency to improve.
• There are free online resources to teach general systems theory in middle school.

Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:

• There’s a phone app that can identify plants and animals in your back yard.
• A space hotel could open as soon as 2020.
• Dog food and people food made from synthetic meat are here.