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It was a year when everything seemed to fall apart. Fuel, food, finance – it all went wrong, and the consequences will dog the world next year and beyond.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however. Many were elated when Barack Obama was elected to become US president – particularly those who care about climate change and the profile of science. The world was also captivated by the switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Cynics might point out that it quickly broke down, but few can disagree that it made particle physics just about the sexiest thing on the…

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