Most frightening stories:

• People in high-pressure jobs are abusing prescription amphetamines to stay focused.
• There is a growing chorus of concern among economists and journalists about a new financial crisis.
• A huge earthquake in the Pacific Northwest could be by far the worst natural disaster ever seen.

Most hopeful stories:

• The Suzuki and Kodaly methods are two ways of teaching music to young children that may actually help them think later in life. Training in jazz improvisation may also be good for young brains in a slightly different way.
• There are some bright ideas for trying to improve construction productivity, which has languished for decades. Most involve some form of offsite fabrication.
• In energy news, there’s a big idea to produce half the world’s electricity from sunlight in the Sahara desert. Another idea for collecting solar energy in otherwise (ecologically) wasted space is solar roadways, and there are a few prototypes around the world but this doesn’t seem to be a magic bullet so far. Another big idea is long-term storage of energy to smooth out fluctuations in supply and demand over months or even years.

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

• There are a few stubborn holdout serious scientists who still think it was volcanoes not an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
• In biotech news, gene editing is starting to be used for food crops, starting with soybean oil.  Also, old mice can live longer if they are transfused with the blood of young mice. And there is a new (to me) book about de-extinction.
• In robot news, a Japanese robot can count and inspect trees in a forest. Robots can also lay bricks.