Just noticed that some items that can be picked up or are already in my Inventory have the magnifier icon (inspect?) next to them What does that mean, what should I do?

It means that, at some point, you tagged those items. Let's say the item with the magnifying class is "OIL". Now, every time you pass by an item that can be broken down into OIL (for example, a bar of soap), that item's name will include a magnifying glass.