2012: Best-of Lists

I promised to post 2012 best of/wrap-up lists before the end of 2012, which just goes to show you how good my promises are. Well, I am finally doing it, below the break, but let me note, first, that Miss Cellania has a bunch of really good collections of lists from around the internet -- you know, if you really needed these you could have gone there:

• Music wrap-up lists
• Books wrap-up lists
• Movie year end lists
• Sports wrap-up lists
• TV wrap-up lists
• Science wrap-up lists
• Advertising wrap-up lists
• Tech and games wrap-up lists
• People oriented wrap-up lists
• Internet news/events/video wrap-up lists
• Photograph best-of lists
• Blog wrap-up lists
• News wrap-up lists
• Miscellaneous wrap-up lists 

That's a lot to go through (as if one really needs to go through every best-of list), so here's the best ones, in my view (as if one really needs to go through any best-of lists):

• The year in pictures according to The Big Picture/The Boston Globe (part 1, part 2, part 3), The New York Times, and In Focus/The Atlantic (part 1, part 2, part 3 -- published too early)
• The best 2012 nature photos from In Focus, Scientific American, and National Geographic (which has not yet finalized its photo contest, BTW), and the top science graphics (according to Wired)
• The top science stories of the year according to Scientific American, Discover, and io9
• The best long form article reads from Longform (a great long form article aggregator), National Geographic (reviewing excellent long form science articles not on Nat'l Geo), and Buzzfeed 
• The best animal photos of 2012 according to Buzzfeed (okay, but these are not specifically cats)
• The best Jennifer Lawrence quotes of 2012 (just because)
• Lists of the best 2012 movies from Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun Times), Ty Burr (The Boston Globe), A.O. Scott (The New York Times), and Anthony Lane and David Denby (both of The New Yorker)
• A compilation of sports cursing (see? I cover sports)
• 2012 News highlights covered by JibJab 
• The best or most prominent viral videos of 2012 according to YouTube (via Huffington Post), Huffington Post (focused on funny), and Buzzfeed
• The best music videos according to Time magazine and Buzzfeed (no, I've hardly seen any of these)
• The best print and video ads of 2012 according to Buzzfeed, Adweek,  Uproxx, and Business Insider
• A video/audio mash-up of 50 top songs from 2012
• The most uplifting photos of the year