Cometary Science Newsletter Issue 12 March 2016 http://www.cometarysciencenews.org/ - Conference Announcements + Second Announcement: Cometary Science after Rosetta Meetings, London, June 14-17 - Refereed Journal Papers + Distant activity of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014: Ground-based results during the Rosetta pre-landing phase, Snodgrass et al. + Comet 252P/LINEAR: Born (Almost) Dead?, Ye et al. + Statistical ortho-to-para ratio of water desorbed from ice at 10 kelvin, Hama et al. + The dust environment of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta OSIRIS and VLT observations in the 4.5 to 2.9 au heliocentric distance range inbound, Moreno et al. -- The Cometary Science Newsletter is dedicated to sharing and furthering cometary science. CSN invites contributions from the astronomical and planetary science communities, including abstracts of papers accepted for publication in refereed journals, thesis abstracts, timely notes on particular comets, conference announcements, job announcements, or other relevant and brief scientific communications. Relevant topics include observational, theoretical, and laboratory work concerning comets, but also may include studies of associated phenomena, such as Centaurs, asteroid-comet transition objects, debris disks, and protoplanetary disks.