Staff favourites
1) Bad guys get the most girls
How self-obsessed, thrill-seeking, devious men do better than nice guys
2) Lazy option is best when waiting for the bus
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Should you walk or stick around when waiting for a tardy bus? Stay put at the first stop in almost all cases, suggests a formula devised by mathematicians at Harvard University
3) Mongoose-robot duo sniffs out landmines
Pairing a mongoose with an exquisite sense of smell with a lightweight robot offers a cheap, effective way to find landmines
4) Could 鈥渂ubble鈥� universes threaten human existence?
It is the ultimate neighbour from hell 鈥� a rogue bubble universe that could rip into our world at any time and eat us and everything else in a flash
5) A Wii warm-up hones surgical skills
It may sound like a bad idea for trainee surgeons to play games on the Nintendo Wii when they should be studying, but it might be time well spent
Most commented articles
1 New legal threat to teaching evolution in the US 鈥� 1041 comments
2 Vote for your favourite science fiction book/film 鈥� 819/633 comments
3 Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions 鈥� 623 comments
4 Creationists declare war over the brain 鈥� 617 comments
5 Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab 鈥� 439 comments
Best missing link
Not as handsome as Daniel Craig, admittedly, but Amphistium and Heteronectes will be famous long after Craig is gone. That鈥檚 because they fill in one of the most significant gaps in evolution鈥檚 jigsaw 鈥� a gap long seized upon by creationists as evidence that flatfish couldn鈥檛 have evolved.
With one eye half-way round (see image), the fossils are a halfway house between symmetrical fish with one eye on either side and bottom-dwelling flatfish such as plaice, which have both eyes on the same side of the skull. It鈥檚 also one in the eye for creationists.
Most clicked articles online
1 Evolution 鈥� 24 myths and misconceptions 359,121
2 Mysterious 鈥渄ead water鈥� effect caught on film 173,457
3 Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab 119,827
4 Music special 鈥� Five great auditory illusions 118,910
5 Fastest-ever flashgun captures image of light wave 111,043
Best blunders
Oops. China boasts of its space walk hours before astronauts had left the launch pad. And US astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper drops a tool box from the space station.
Sarah Palin makes her stance on climate change crystal clear: 鈥淚鈥檓 not one to attribute every man 鈥� activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man鈥檚 activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.鈥�
Michael Fournier fails in his attempt to sky-dive faster than the speed of sound when his balloon takes off without him.
Soundbites
鈥淧lutoids or haemorrhoids, whatever they call it. This is irrelevant.鈥�
Alan Stern, former NASA science chief, on the decision by the International Astronomical Union to call all 鈥渄warf planets鈥� in the solar system 鈥減lutoids鈥� (Associated Press, 11 June)
鈥淚t will ruin your summer.鈥�
Lyle Petersen, an expert on West Nile virus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, on getting the disease himself (CNN, 23 June)
鈥淗ow does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing, I am stable and confident being the man that I am.鈥�
Thomas Beatie, who is a transgender man, revealed he was five-months pregnant. He had kept his female reproductive organs after his sex change (The Advocate, Los Angeles, 25 March)
鈥淚f you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.鈥�
NASA鈥檚 Mars Phoenix lander blogs its final words (Gizmodo, 10 November)