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  1. Mad Science: Einstein’s Fridge, Dewar’s Flask, Mach’s Speed, and 362 Other Inventions and Discoveries that Made Our World by Randy Alfred, ed.

    Celebrate a technology anniversary for each day of the year with this compendium of inventions. Little, Brown and Co., 2012, 390 p., $19.99

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  2. BOOK REVIEW: Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova

    Review by Alexandra Witze.

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  3. BOOK REVIEW: Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds by Jim Sterba

    Review by Sid Perkins.

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  4. Life

    Inflammation feeds E. coli

    Inflammation, normally a defense against microbes, may become counterproductive in the gut by feeding disease-causing bacteria.

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  5. Science & Society

    No New Meds

    With drug firms in retreat, the pipeline for new psychiatric medications dries up.

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  6. Earth

    Salvage Job

    With fertilizer prices skyrocketing, scientists scramble to recover phosphorus from waste.

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  7. Archaeology

    A king’s final hours, told by his mortal remains

    The skeleton of Richard III reveals a violent and chaotic end for a controversial English monarch.

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  8. Space

    Supernova’s death throes revealed

    In archival images, astronomers see giant star’s activity in weeks before supernova.

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  9. Earth

    Magnitude 8.0 earthquake strikes Solomon Islands

    Temblor is the largest in a month of seismic activity on Australian-Pacific plate boundary.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Link between obesity and vitamin D clarified

    People carrying gene variants tied to weight are also prone to deficiency of the sun-derived nutrient, but not vice versa.

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  11. Animals

    Mole sniffs the world in stereo

    Nostrils of the common mole recognize slight differences in smells to steer it toward its food.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    TV watching linked to low sperm counts

    Couch potatoes’ reproductive health may suffer.

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