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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!