A few days ago, I found myself in the unlikely situation of sitting by candlelight at midnight in an allotment garden which we are borrowing from one of R's colleagues, arguing for ensuring Norwegian food security through farm subsidies because of something that happened in Siberia in 1908. In fact, it turns out that the Tunguska event had just had it's first centennial. When my head cleared the following morning, it struck me that my argument was not entirely sound, since food security is already incorporated into the agricultural budget to the tune of - IIRC - only 10 or 12 %.

Anyway, another cool thing which came up was Norman Borlaug. Don't know who he was? That's ok. He only saved the lives of a billion people.