It's the end of the year, so it's time to reflect on the past twelve months. In case you’re already saturated with 2006 retrospectives, we’ll keep ours brief. These are all our own humble opinions of the special stories, of course. The Most Scientifically Important Physics story of 2006 . . . NASA's discovery of hard evidence for dark matter. Runner up to the Most Scientifically Important Physics story of 2006 . . . The (Re)Discovery of Elements 116 and 118. The Most Fun Physics story of 2006. . . The Ig Nobel Award for a study of why spaghetti breaks in more than two pieces when it is bent. Runner up to the Most Fun Physics story of 2006 . . . Bad Basketballs The Most Over Blown physics story . . . A cloaking device that got the press excited, but will probably never work on anything larger than a dust speck (which is pretty hard to see already). Runner up to the Most Over Blown physics story . . . The Eggcentric Universe. (I
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