I just wanted to mark this moment – Not Exactly Rocket Science has just received its four millionth page view. It’s a pretty sweet New Year’s present and gives me a nice hook to reflect on the last year.

I wrote 275 pieces for the blog, and I started doing a weekly roundup of links. In March, I moved the blog to Discover, a decision I’ve been immensely happy with. For reference, two of the four million views so far have been in the last 10 months (it took 42 to get the first two million). The first set of heartfelt thanks go to Amos Zeeberg for recruting me; Eliza Strickland, Gemma Shusterman, Andrew Moseman, Joe Calamia, and Jennifer Welsh for helping to promote and debug the blog; Sheril, Carl, Phil, Razib, Sean, Chris and my other fellow Discover bloggers for their camaraderie; my entire network of friends and colleagues in the blogosphere, Twitter and the UK science community for their support; and everyone who reads, comments on, and passes on these posts for taking NERS out of the echo-chamber and into the world.

Outside of the blog, I wrote six feature pieces: on memory molecules and a 40-million-year dry spell for the Times’s Eureka magazine, on the mislabelled ‘warrior gene’ and the magnetovision of birds for New Scientist, on surprisingly sophisticated slime moulds for the Guardian, and a couple of items for WIRED’s Ideas Special. My thanks go out to my editors Kate Douglas, Michael LePage, Alok Jha, Antonia Senior and David Rowan for commissioning those pieces and knocking them into shape.

I started doing lots of speaking engagements on journalism, blogging and writing: at the US and London editions of ScienceOnline 2010; for science communication/journalism students at City University, Imperial College, NYU and Macquarie University; at the ABSW science journalism conference; and at several  debates/panels at the Royal Institution, City University and more. Hearty thanks to Bora Zivkovic, Alice Bell, Mark Henderson, Lucy Harper, Ivan Oransky, David Dobbs, Henry Scowcroft, Fiona Fox, Mun-Keat Looi and Steve Pratt for inviting me to those events.

Best of all, I won the online category in the National Academies Keck 2010 Science Communication Awards, the Three Quarks Daily Science Prize 2010, and three prizes at the inaugural Research Blogging Awards 2009. Thanks to the judging panels, Richard Dawkins and my fellow bloggers respectively. (In return, I also helped to judge the resurrected ABSW Science Writing awards and OpenLab 2010) I somehow ended up in Eureka’s 100 important people in science supplement, in a list of ten people under 40 to watch. Presumably not in the voyeuristic sense, or the Government blacklist sense. Thanks to Mark Henderson and Alice Bell for graciously accepting my bribes.

In November, I had a nap. Next year, I might do more of that.

But probably not.

And last but not least, a final massive burst of gratitude to my wife, Alice, for her unerring encouragment and belief, in these endeavours and in everything else.

Happy New Year everyone. See you in 2011.

This is the final part of my review of the year, with a more light-hearted look at the past 12 months. But first, here are parts 1-10.

• Part 1 – “They did what now?”
• Part 2 – Animals bring the awe
• Part 3 – Science and society
• Part 4 – New species
• Part 5 – Best mind hacks
• Part 6 – Early dawns
• Part 7 – Cool videos
• Part 8 – Frenetic genetics
• Part 9 – Twists and lessons
• Part 10 – The future is now

IgNobel tribute awards

First up, a selection of posts that, in the words of the award creators, first make people laugh, and then make them think.

Beer makes humans more attractive to malarial mosquitoes

The good news: beer makes some people much more attractive. The bad news: it makes them more attractive to mosquitoes. Anopheles gambiae (the mosquito that transmits malaria) finds the body odour of beer drinkers to be quite tantalising. The authors even suggest (very speculatively and with tongue somewhat planted in cheek) that mosquitoes might have evolved a preference for the smell of beer-drinkers, “possibly due to reduced host defensive behaviours”.

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Many of the stories I write about fall into the “shock and awe” camp – discoveries that promote wonder without promising anything practical. These are different. They are technical achievements that have direct practical implications for improving our lives, developing our technologies and allowing us to better investigate our world. And no, before you ask, I didn’t write about Venter’s synthetic bacterium, except in jest.

10) Enter the nano-spiders – independent walking robots made of DNA

Two spiders are walking along a track – a seemingly ordinary scene, but these are no ordinary spiders. They are molecular robots and they, like the tracks they stride over, are fashioned from DNA. One of them has four legs and marches over its DNA landscape, turning and stopping with no controls from its human creators. The other has four legs and three arms – it walks along a miniature assembly line, picking up three pieces of cargo from loading machines (also made of DNA) and attaching them to itself. All of this is happening at the nanometre scale, far beyond what the naked eye can discern. Welcome to the exciting future of nanotechnology.

9) How to watch mutations in real time

Every time a cell divides in two, its genetic information is copied and there’s a small chance that mistakes (or ‘mutations’) will creep in. Marina Elez has developed a way to watch mutations in real time. She can look at dividing cells and literally watch the moment when mutations show up across the entire genome. She tagged a proofreading protein called MutL with a glow-in-the-dark molecule. The protein tracks down mutations and tries to fix them; when it can’t, it sits at the altered site and gives off a telltale glow.

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This is the ninth of a series of reviews, looking back at a year of science according to topic and theme. This one celebrates science as enlightenment. Some of these discoveries make us consider the world in a new light, some act as timely reminders of things we already know, and others complicate a previously simple picture. They tell us that no matter how much we think we know, it’s all a little more complicated than that.

13) Genes and culture: OXTR gene influences social behaviour differently in Americans and Koreans

The OXTR gene acts as a dock for oxytocin, a hormone frequently billed as a “love hormone”. Among Americans, a specific “G” version of OXTR makes carriers more likely to seek emotional support from their friends. But for Koreans, whose culture frowns on seeking support from one’s social circle, the opposite happens. People with the G version are less likely to turn to their peers in times of need. To top it all off, both of these effects only showed up when people experienced a lot of stress. The study reminds us that the same stretch of DNA can lead to very different deeds, depending on individual circumstances. Environments and cultures set the stage on which genes expresse itself.

12) Pregnant male pipefish abort babies from unattractive females

Seahorses and pipefish took a big leap from models of fatherhood to vampiric cannibal abortionists. The females lay their eggs into a pouch in the male’s belly and he carries the developing babies to term. They may seem like a shoe-in for a Dad-of-the-year award but two studies this year showed that males can turn into cannibals. They can absorb the young in their pouch for their own nutrition. What’s more, they’re more likely to do this if they’ve mated with an unattractive female.

11) A warmer ocean is a less green one

The oceans are in trouble. Every year, a mountain of research spells trouble for watery wildlife, as climate change heats the oceans and makes their waters more acidic. This year, one of the most alarming studies showed that tiny green creatures called phytoplankton are disappearing. This couldn’t be more important. Phytoplankton are the bottom of the ocean’s food web, and they produce much of the planet’s oxygen. Their numbers have fallen by around 1% per year over the last century as the oceans have become warmer, and if anything, their decline is getting faster.  Our blue planet is becoming less green with every year.

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This is the eighth of a series of reviews, looking back at a year of science according to topic and theme. This is about the unexpectedly dynamic world of genes, including some that jump around their host genomes, others that infiltrate new species, and yet others that change in surprisingly constrained ways.

12) I am virus – animal genomes contain more fossil viruses than ever expected

Your genome is full of fossils, the remains of ancient viruses that shoved their genes into those of your ancestors. This year, we learned that this genetic infiltration was far more extensive than anyone had realised. By screening 44 animal genomes of 44 species, Aris Katzourakis and Robert Gifford found fossils representing 11 virus families, including ancient relatives of influenza, Ebola, hepatitis B and rabies. Most of these “endogenous viral elements” or EVEs are broken and fragmented, but some have been domesticated and probably play an active role in their new hosts. The EVEs can tell us about what ancient viruses were like, about which modern animals act as reservoirs for today’s killers, and even about viruses that jumped from one host to another.

11) Holy hybrids Batman! Caribbean fruit bat is a mash-up of three species

Most mammals can trace their origins to a single ancestral species but a Caribbean fruit bat called Artibeus schwartzi has a far more complex family tree. It’s a hybrid of three separate species. Its main genome is a cross between those of two other fruit bats, A. jamaicensis and A. Planirostris. But a third ancestor contributed the genome of its mitochondria (energy-providing structures in the cells of all animals that carry their own accessory genes).  This third species has either since gone extinct or hasn’t been discovered yet. Artibeus schwartzi is a fusion bat – a sort of fuzzy, winged spork.

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This is the sixth of a series of reviews, looking back at a year of science according to topic and theme. This one is pretty self-explanatory. These aren’t necessarily the most entertaining videos of the last year, but they all helped illustrate an already fascinating story.

10) Pocket Science – belly-flopping frogs

One of the more amusing videos of the year (and I take credit for adding an appropriate score). Frogs are powerful jumpers and most land gracefully on their front legs. But not the Rocky Mountain tailed frog. It belongs to a lineage of ancient frogs that lands with an awkward mix of belly-flops, face-plants and lengthy skids. Only when it grinds to a halt does it recover its outstretched limbs together. These results support the idea that frogs evolved their jumping abilities to escape from danger by rapidly diving into water. Only later did they evolve to pull their legs in earlier and land gracefully on land. The Rocky Mountain tailed frog never did, but it compensates with a large shield-shaped piece of cartilage that protects its undersides.

9)Pocket science – bursting bubbles make more bubbles

A bursting bubble might seem unspectacular but a set of slow-motion videos revealed more to this everyday even than meets the eye. The videos showed that a popped bubble doesn’t just vanish. Instead, it gives birth to a ring of smaller daughter bubbles, each of which can produce an even smaller ring when it bursts.The whole process takes place in a few thousandths of a second and it can only happen twice before the daughter bubbles get too small.

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This is the sixth of a series of reviews, looking back at a year of science according to topic and theme. This one covers my favourite discoveries about the distant past. They change our views of (and push back the dates of) some of the most important events in prehistory, from the origin of complex life, to the invasion of the land, to the development of human butchery (well, maybe).

10) Norfolk – the home of the earliest known humans in Britain

An unassuming English village called Happisburgh, Norfolk happens to be the site of Britain’s earliest known human settlement. With the village about to fall into the sea, archaeologists uncovered over 70 flint tools from the exposed shore. They suggest that humans lived in this area over 800,000 years ago, some 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. These first Brits had to contend with prowling sabre-toothed cats and hyenas, mammoths and woolly rhinos, a Thames that flowed upwards to Norfolk, and rubbish weather. The last bit, at least, hasn’t changed.

9) Dramatic restructuring of dinosaur feathers revealed by two youngsters of same species

Regular readers of this blog should be familiar with the concept of feathered dinosaurs but two specimens, described earlier this year, put an unusual twist in the tale of dinosaur feathers. The fossils are both youngsters of the same species – Similicaudipteryx – but at different ages and with very different types of feathers. The older one has plumes shaped like quills, while the younger one has feathers that are thin ribbons at their base and quills at their tips. Together, they demonstrate that the feather of some dinosaurs changed dramatically as they grew older, in a way that we don’t see in any modern bird.

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This is the fifth in a series of posts reviewing last year’s stories, according to theme and topic. These are my favourites from a year of psychological research – quirky yet potentially important results that tell us about how susceptible our minds can be to small influences.

9) Heavy, rough and hard – how the things we touch affect our judgments and decisions

The properties we feel through touch – texture, hardness, weight – can all influence the way we think. Weight is linked to importance, so that people carrying heavy objects deem interview candidates as more serious and social problems as more pressing. Texture is linked to difficulty and harshness. Touching rough sandpaper makes social interactions seem more adversarial, while smooth wood makes them seem friendlier. Hardness is associated with rigidity and stability. When sitting on a hard chair, negotiators take tougher stances but if they sit on a soft one instead, they become more flexible.

8 ) Curb those food cravings by imagining yourself eating lots of food

People get used to the taste of food if they eat too much of it; now, we know that this works even if people just imagine themselves eating. People who think about themselves eating lots of candy will snack on less actual candy when given the chance. The mental exercise actually quells the desire for food and it’s another reminder that experiencing something in your mind often has the same effects as experiencing it in the flesh. Not only are these results interesting, they’re counter-intuitive. People typically think that eating lots of food in your head makes you eat more in real life.

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This is the fourth in a series of posts reviewing last year’s stories, according to theme and topic. This one is about this year’s new species, both living and extinct.

8 ) T.rex the nose-loving tyrant leech king

It’s the new T.rex – a giant leech found in the nose of a 9-year-old Peruvian girl. After a headache that lasted for two weeks and a strange “sliding sensation” in her nose, doctors removed a seven-centimetre leech from the girl’s nose. It was named Tyrannobdella rex, or “tyrant leech king”. Most leeches are found on the skin, Tyrannobdella is a member of the praobdellid group, which have a disturbing propensity for entering human orifices. They have specialised at feeding on mucous membranes, such as those found in the nose, eye, vagina, anus and urethra.

7) Sanajeh, the snake the ate baby dinosaurs

The prehistoric snake Sanajeh indicus was discovered in an extraordinary position – sitting in a dinosaur nest, coiled around three eggs and the body of a hatchling. Sanajeh took 26 years to reach the public eye. It was dug up in 1984, but it took the keen eye of Jeffrey Wilson to spot the distinctive backbone of a snake some 17 years later. It took a second jigsaw-like piece to complete the skeleton, and negotiations with the Indian Government, to unveil the full fossil. Two Sanajeh individuals have been found at the same site suggesting that this snake made a habit of feasting on would-be giants.

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(Merry Christmas everyone)

Top ten picks

Rise of the Denisovians – Carl Zimmer on the new group of ancient humans, identified through a pinky and a molar. The group are cousins of the Neanderthals, belonging to a lineage that split off from them about 400,000 years ago. They also interbred with some early humans, and some of their genes turn up in modern Melanesians. John Hawks has a must-read FAQ on the discovery, Razib Khan has a very detailed and contextual take on the paper’s implications, and Zimmer reports back with some interesting dissentA brief history of science and journalism, two disciplines that diverged and are now reconnecting, ably narrated by Bora Zivkovic.

Last year, US scientists suggested that the mouse virus XMRV could cause chronic fatigue syndrome, and ever since, labs have largely failed at replicating the results. Now, four new papers by independent international labs all come to the same conclusion: XMRV doesn’t cause CFS.

The real 12 stages of a lunar eclipse – a scoop by John Rennie. Number 6 is “Intrusion of strange dimensions” and number 8 is “Cthulhu”.

Science writing done right. Nature’s top 10 features for 2010. This includes some of my favourites, including Virginia Hughes on fMRI, Brendan Maher’s sabotage expose and David Adams’s interview with Phil Jones. Nature also follows up on last year’s top stories to find out what happened next.

“I think maybe it has something to do with that there was some hype.” Felisa Wolfe-Simon – she of arsenic bacteria fame – gives an exclusive interview to Elizabeth Pennisi of ScienceNOW about the paper and the backlash.

“Babies as young as seven months old may be able to take into account the thoughts and beliefs of other people,” reports Janelle Weaver. I know plenty of adults who can’t do this…

“Deep in a cave in the forests of northern Spain are the remains of a gruesome massacre.“  Carl Zimmer describes a cave where a Neanderthal family was slaughtered by cannibals. Ann Gibbons discusses the social side of the discovery. “It’s similar to what you would find if you went to a wedding and sampled the people in the wedding party. If you sample 12 people in the street, you would never find so many people with the same mtDNA.”

Steve Silberman had some brilliant coverage of the new placebo study that I wrote about, setting it into context and interviewing one of the authors. PalMD and Orac have their own more critical takes.

The juxtaposition of this post and these ads are either great or unfortunate depending on how you look at it. Likewise for these two main stories.

A video of rotating Jupiter, taken FROM THE GROUND. Phil Plait just blew my teeny mind.

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