Most frightening and/or depressing story: One of the National Intelligence Council’s scenarios for 2040 involves “far-reaching changes designed to address climate change, resource depletion, and poverty following a global food catastrophe caused by climate events and environmental degradation”.

Most hopeful story: Giant tortoises reach a state of “negligible senescense” where they simply don’t age for a long time. Humans are distant relatives of giant tortoises, so maybe we can aspire to this some day. They are not invulnerable to injury and disease.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: Hydrogen fuel cells may finally be arriving. Not so much in the U.S., where we can’t have nice things.