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Preface | |
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Acknowledgments | |
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Benjamin Franklin and the Swatches on the Snow | |
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Once You've Had It, You Can't Catch It Again | |
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Why Is the Sky Blue? | |
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Static Electricity | |
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Why One Rotten Apple Can Spoil the Barrel | |
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Superconductors | |
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Does Smoking Cause Lung Cancer? | |
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What Is a Gene? | |
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Why Do Cats' Eyes Glow at Night? | |
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Paul Ehrlich, Dyes, and Drugs | |
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Why You Can Never Get to the End of the Rainbow | |
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The Difference between a Square and a Diamond | |
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Sounds over a Lake at Evening | |
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Do the Best Dogs Come from the Pound? | |
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Flip a Coin, Beat the Odds | |
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Stroboscopic Stagecoach Wheels | |
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Why Are Bells Made of Metal? | |
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Why Rivers Don't Flow in a Straight Line | |
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What's Your Average Speed? | |
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The Basic Unit of Life | |
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How Aspirin Got Its Name | |
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Cold Water at the Bottom of a Lake | |
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Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men? | |
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A Thirty Percent Chance of Rain | |
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Limeys | |
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How Does Lung Cancer Start? | |
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The Light of Spring | |
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Vitamines and Vitamins | |
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Colors and Their Opposites | |
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How Does the World Look to a Bee? | |
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Death of the Dinosaurs: A Quick Review | |
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Why Do We Put Cut Flowers in Water? | |
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Life without Zero | |
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Prostaglandins | |
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Sweetened Condensed Milk | |
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What the Weather Report Doesn't Tell You | |
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Why Mowing the Lawn Doesn't Kill the Grass | |
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A Mirror Riddle | |
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Galileo's Job Application | |
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The Consequences of Smallness | |
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Ozone and Ice | |
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Benjamin Franklin's Madeira Wine Surprise | |
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Viruses Attack Bacteria | |
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The Birth of the Atomic Age | |
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Honest Answers to Personal Questions | |
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Risk Assessment | |
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Broken Symmetry: Cosmetic or Cosmic? | |
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Antimatter | |
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The Secret of Clear Ice Cubes | |
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Broken Cups and Atoms | |
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Trapdoor Codes | |
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Late-Night Radio | |
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Does Nature Abhor a Vacuum? | |
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How Does Water Get to the Top of a Tree? | |
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Adding and Subtracting Colors | |
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What Could Change Earth's Climate? | |
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Polarized Light and a Quiet Lake | |
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Are Forest Fires Always Bad? | |
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Death of the Dinosaurs Revisited | |
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Breaking a Coffee Cup | |
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How Bacteria Resist Antibiotics | |
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Cool Wind before a Thunderstorm | |
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Lightning | |
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Thunder | |
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Heat Lightning | |
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How Many Girls, How Many Boys? | |
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Modern Biology in a Monastery Garden | |
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See Yourself as Others See You | |
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Neutrinos and the End of the Universe | |
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Cooking an Egg | |
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How a Field Can Become a Forest | |
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The Most Important Fly in the History of Science | |
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How Plants Fight | |
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How Fast Are the Clouds Moving? | |
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Sort Nuts by Shaking the Can | |
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Everybody Talks about Genes - But What Do They Do? | |
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Looking High and Low at Leaves | |
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A Taste Test | |
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Why a Rubber Band Snaps Back | |
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Breaking the Tension | |
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How Cockroaches Get Away | |
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The Moon Illusion | |
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Polarizing Sunglasses | |
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Pros and Cons of the Mercator Projection | |
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A Surprise at a Shadow's Edge | |
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Algae as a Thermostat | |
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Balance a Yardstick without Looking | |
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A Rock in a Rowboat | |
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Whiter and Brighter Than New | |
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Hormone Insecticides | |
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An Inverted Image | |
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A New Person from a Nose? | |
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The Mysterious Number Pi | |
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Springs in the Cafeteria | |
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Firefly Signals | |
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Mirages | |
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Seeing Yellow | |
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Why Cotton Wrinkles | |
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DNA Caught in the Act | |
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Newton's Rainbow | |
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The Elastic Ruler | |
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Uncorking a Mystery | |
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Psychological Accounting | |
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Color Is in the Eye of the Beholder | |
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Wine and Life | |
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The Sweet Spot on a Baseball Bat | |
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Make an Image without a Lens | |
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Chimes, for Your Ears Only | |
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It's Not Just the Heat; It's the Humidity | |
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Fluorescent Lamps | |
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The Truth about Bleach | |
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Carbon Dating | |
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Soap Bubbles and Butterfly Wings | |
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Tracing the Roots of Energy | |
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Why Fan Blades Stay Dirty | |
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Brown Apples and Brown Tea | |
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Optics and Glue | |
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Light Takes Time | |
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Read Fine Print through a Pinhole | |
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Get Your Bearings with Two Thumbtacks | |
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A Globe as a Sundial | |
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An Ink Ring in a Glass of Water | |
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Why After-Dinner Mints Taste Cool | |
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A Leaf Falls | |
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A Dot, a Line, a Crease, a Beautiful Curve | |
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Directing a Living Cell | |
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Dancing Pollen Grains | |
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Wet Weather Means Brighter Colors | |
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The Spinning Earth and the Weather | |
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Infection: A Struggle between Two Organisms | |
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Why Doesn't a Pregnant Woman Reject Her Fetus? | |
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The Floating Cork Trick | |
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A Thousandth of a Second | |
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Touching and Being Touched | |
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On a Clear Day, How Far Can You See? | |
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Edison and the Bulge-heads | |
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The Shape of Sound | |
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The Wrong Formula for Water | |
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Discovering Viruses | |
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Cells Get Old and Die | |
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Sorting Out Musical Pitches | |
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The Echo of a Train | |
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Microbursts and Airplane Crashes | |
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What's inside an Atom? | |
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Dew-bows | |
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Halogen Lamps | |
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When Pop Bottles Don't Blow Up ... and When They Do | |
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It's Not What You Hear - It's When You Hear It | |
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Weightless Water | |
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Warmth from a Cold Lamp | |
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall | |
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Artificial Flavoring Means Fewer "Chemicals" | |
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Catch a Falling Dollar | |
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Cosmic Rays | |
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Chocolate Bloom | |
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Getting Robbed in the Camera Obscura | |
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CFCs and CO[subscript 2] | |
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The Shapes of Snow | |
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Skidding Downhill | |
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Infrared | |
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Dark Meat and Light Meat | |
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Sperm Meets Egg: What Really Happens | |
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Do You Really Have a One-Track Mind? | |
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The Season of Static Electricity | |
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What Soap Does to Water | |
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Roll Over, George Washington | |
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Don't Believe Your Fingers | |
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The Curve of a Meandering River | |
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Curved Space in a Christmas Ornament | |
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Guests in Every Cell | |
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The Glory | |
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The Waterfall Effect | |
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White Sky, Gray Snow | |
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Why Chickens Don't Have Webbed Feet | |
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Can You Draw a Penny from Memory? | |
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Clouds in a Jar | |
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Ultraviolet | |
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Reproduction and Sex: What's the Difference? | |
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A Comb, a Sock, and a Faucet | |
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Our Most Distant Relatives | |
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Cheap Imitation Ivory | |
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Freezing Hot Water Pipes | |
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The Rising Water Mystery | |
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Would You Drink This? | |
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Is It Ever Too Cold to Snow? | |
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Is It Ever Too Warm to Snow? | |
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Alcohol Content | |
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Summer Antifreeze and Candy | |