2011 Science News of the Year

You can’t make this stuff up.

An earthquake and tsunami trigger the worst nuclear accident in decades, contaminating thousands of square kilometers in one of the world’s most densely populated countries. Analyses of a sliver of finger bone reveal that the genes of an extinct human relative survive in many people living today. Single-celled organisms floating in a test tube join up, with a little coaxing, to create multi-cellular organisms in what could be a reenactment of one of the most seminal events in the history of life.