In his book "Everything's Relative - And Other Fables From Science And Technology" Tony Rothman writes:

 "[The term] 'special relativity' is probably the greatest misnomer in the history of science"

I wholeheartedly agree. Amongst all scientific terms, the single word 'relativity' stands out as absolute record holder for triggering an astonishing amount of utter nonsense. 

Betting a grand on the existence or not of new physics is cool, but one does not need to be that daring (or to be that daring every other day) to enjoy the game of making predictions for what the fundamental research in experimental particle physics will discover or measure in a future close enough that we can reasonably expect to experience ourselves. So here I am, at the end of this eventful 2010, to look forward rather than backward, with no additional grand to invest but some insight to use, some reputation to waste, and a bit of humour to stuff between the lines.

In the category of lesser-known holidays that could be celebrated on December 25th, the coronation of William of Normandy in 1066 A.D. as first King of what we know as modern England would have to be considered.    It was the last time a foreign nation would conquer the island nation and years later the Brits gave us all Shakespeare, Christmas Island and America.

Blue sharks in the Gulf Stream, in the western Atlantic, probably spend all day eating squid.

At first, that doesn't seem remarkable. Every big predator likes to eat squid, and sharks are no exception. And there are plenty of squid in the Gulf Stream, particularly Illex illecebrosus, which could arguably be referred to as the Humboldt squid of the western Atlantic. Illex illecebrosus and Dosidicus gigas are in the same family of large, muscular oceanic squid--Ommastrephidae--and they exhibit similar daily vertical migrations.

What do you get when you cross Science 2.0, the cultural buzzterm that really took off in 2010 (and brought with it a whole host of colloquial meanings veering into 'web 2.0-ish, it means whatever you want it to mean' jargon) with a western world Christmas season?

You get an excuse to do a compilation of science articles, that's what.

So once again this year I have compiled topical articles from this year and seasons past.