UPDATE: 2010 GD37 is now REMOVED from the risk list - it turns out that it's just an ordinary main belt asteroid. 2010 GD37 is now REMOVED from the risk list

This UN Report is not saying we are going to be unable to feed everyone. But we need to be careful to maintain the biodiversity of the wild relatives of our crops and also of our ecosystems to be most resilient. We don’t risk mass famine, they say that specifically in the interview with the BBC but we need the biodiversity to deal with future issues such as for instance pests and diseases of our crops. On this the situation is rather encouraging, especially if you read the report itself.

Please don’t be scared by this, it is just the journalists hyping things up again. It does not mean what it seems to mean from the headlines. Insects can’t vanish and we will continue to be able to grow our crops and do agriculture. The study itself involves a lot of extrapolation on inadequate data, not their fault, it is just that there hasn’t been that much research done on insect populations for them to draw on.

This is another of my articles to help people who get terrified by news stories, which often get exaggerated titles even by responsible journalists. In this case many are scared that withdrawal from the INF is going to lead to a nuclear war. So, yes, it's in the news now that US has announced it will withdraw from the INF treaty, and Russia has responded with an identical move the day after. The US withdrawal has been expected for some weeks now and the Russian symmetrical response is hardly much of a surprise. IT IS NOT A DECLARATION OF NUCLEAR WAR.

This is an example story. This is by Bloomberg who are normally very reliable.

UPDATE - NO HIT - AS PREDICTED BY ASTRONOMERS - The red top tabloids were quoting from something astronomers said 16 years ago. They aren't like the false prophet date setters. If they give a date they also give a time and timezone, just as they do for eclipse forecasts. It was 11:47 UTC (same as UK time in winter) . That's over an hour ago now.

Another post to help people scared of perfectly normal harmless events because of the sensationalist press and false prophets. This is just the moon passing through Earth’s shadow as it does usually once or twice a year. It’s done it for billions of years. Usually it passes above or below Earth’s shadow at full moon, and occasionally it passes through it, and that’s the lunar eclipse.

Half the world can see a lunar eclipse, the entire night side of Earth at the time of the event. It is far easier to see than a solar eclipse which needs you to live on or travel to a narrow eclipse track where the Moon’s shadow briefly touches the surface of the Earth.

Here are some guides about how to observe it. In the US: