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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 | |