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I thought I’d do my own little year-end recap. Here are my favorites from the pieces I worked on this year. 

• Using EEGs to find consciousness in people with ‘locked-in’ syndrome
• A Q&A on the crazy underworld of the exotic pet trade, inspired by the story of the man who released 56 wild animals in Ohio and then killed himself
• A look at Derek Boogaard’s death and the dangers of brain injury in ice hockey
• My first piece at New Scientist, and the most exciting science news of the year, in my opinion: Faster-than-light neutrinos
• My spot news piece on the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. Reporting on this felt more important than anything else I’ve done. I also got to write a follow-up piece for New Scientist about the low levels of radiation measured at Fukushima. Nice bookends.
• The video and story on the Dark Energy Camera, which is basically the coolest camera on the planet. Seeing that thing towering above us was so cool (I did this one with my partner-in-particle-physics-crime, Justin). 
• Another one with Justin, which took us to Switzerland, was the firing up of the Large Hadron Collider. Visiting CERN was definitely one of the highlights of the year, and telling their story was such a good intro to science journalism.
• One of the coolest stories on nanotech I’ve done was about a single-molecule car. So awesome.
• A fun piece about how fish enjoy massage as a stress-reliever (just like us!).
• You know that game where you hold a buttercup to your chin and if you glow, you’re supposed to like butter? Well, I wrote a piece about some research into why buttercups give off that glow. Who knew flowers could be so fun?

All right, I hope you enjoy reading these as much I enjoyed writing and researching them. I’m off to try sabering open a champagne bottle, eat some chocolate covered strawberries, and wave goodbye to what has undoubtedly been the absolute best year of my life. Here’s hoping 2012 brings as much wonder and adventure as the last twelve months have. Happy New Year!

For work, I was covering a libel case brought against the scientific journal Nature, so I headed over the London’s High Court (which, I guess is like the Supreme Court of England, yeah?) to watch the trial. That place is scary yo. It’s dungeony and dark and full of arched stone doorways that lead to dimly lit spiral staircases that go down long stone hallways. I felt like this was a place where people were led through in shackles back in the day. And the courtroom looked just like a Harry Potter movie with the judge all high on her bench and the lawyers down in this weird pit. I hope I never have to go back, but with my recklessness, who knows. I could very well end up the one in shackles.

PS: I sort of don’t believe in this stuff, but if there were ever a place with ghosts in it, that place has ‘em. 

That’s the sound my brain makes a few dozen times a day while I write and research and read about science. I feel like there must actually be a sound associated with that feeling of discovery, of being absolutely astounded and in awe of stuff.

Here are some AMAZINGAMAZING things I came across this week at work:

1. Waterbears: OMG these little dudes sound incredible. I was reading through a story about how they’re sending these creatures to one of Mars’ moons and it just casually mentioned them like everyone knows what they are. But I had no idea. They’re these cool little animals found in water and they’re tiny - we’re talking microscopic - but they are basically the toughest animal on earth. I searched the New Scientist archive to find out more about them and came across this description: 
   
   Water bears can withstand crushing pressures, shrug off lethal radiation and survive being boiled alive or chilled to near-absolute zero. They do this by completely shutting down their metabolism and then coming back to life. And I’ve heard that they look quite cute as they swim by, thrashing the water with their eight paws.” 
   
   WHAT?! Here’s a cute drawing of one:
   And click here for some not-quite-so-cute real pictures of them. Evidently, they have a transparent jelly-like color that makes them look like gummy bears.
   
   
2. In that same article, I read about Miscanthus, a grass that grows so quickly (over 13 feet a year!) you can actually hear it getting taller. The scientist quoted in the piece says: “It crackles.”
   
   Nature never ceases to amaze me. I absolutely MUST witness this someday.
   
   
3. And then, I was looking through the magazine today and I saw a crazy picture of a sea gull attacking an eagle. Evidently gulls are pretty brazen when attacking a predator and will even vomit and defecate on their victims. Sheesh. Rein it in a bit, guys.

I love all the cool crazy stuff I find out about every day. Makes me think I could go the rest of my life and still be completely astonished by something each day. I hope that’s the case anyway.