Small Wonders: January 7, 2011

In this week’s edition: exploding toads, psychopathic hippies, and the problem with “chemical free.”

* We’re only a week into the new year, and I’m already calling it: Best new science site of 2011.

* Birds falling from the sky? That’s nothing: Exploding toads and other strange mass animal deaths.

* Suicidal soldier forced to redeploy.

* Fancy a vacation? How about Snake Island?

* Meet the man who fantasized about being hit by a female driver.

* Chemist David Nichols despairs of how his work is being abused to create dangerous drugs.

* Peek into the insane life of a taxidermist.

* Blast from the social science past: Hippies are psychopaths.

* National Geographic has stunning photos of an enormous cave in Vietnam.

* Up close and personal with the mice with two dads.

* Best peer-reviewed comeback ever.

* Deborah Blum on the ridiculous notion of living “chemical free.”

* For struggling New-Year’s-Resolution-ers: Try the mind-control diet!

* A 10-year-old discovers a supernova.

* Great lists of 2010′s most popular posts from Carl Zimmer and David Dobbs.

The Small Wonders: January 7, 2011 by Wonderland, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.