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Darwin Day Celebration website

Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth.
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN February 12, 1809 to April 19, 1882

Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.
The Darwin Day Celebration website provides resources and publicity for individuals and institutions across the world to celebrate science and humanity every year, on, or near, February 12, Darwin's birthday. In addition to information about the life and legacy of Charles Darwin, this website provides practical examples, advice and templates for organizing and publicizing Darwin Day events. It also provides a directory of events where you can find celebrations taking place near you or register your own event for others to find.


Symposium: Evolutionary islands 150 years after Darwin

150 Years after Darwin's On the Origin of Species, island evolution is entering a new phase. By habitat fragmentation, we humans create more and more islands, while at the same time, by transporting species from their native biomes, we remove the dispersal barriers that kept habitats isolated. To explore the implications of this new era of island evolution, the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden, the Netherlands, together with the Darwin Center for Biogeology in Utrecht, the Netherlands, will organise an international congress on "Island Evolution 150 Years After Darwin"11-13 February 2009Museum Naturalis, Leiden, the Netherlands
The meeting will bring together traditional students of island biotas, experimental/theoretical community ecologists, and evolutionary biologists, to explore the role of island-biological processes in a world in which the "island processes" of isolation and dispersal are bein

Google Earth’s new oceans feature plumbs the Ocean Depths

Google Earth dives into the oceans
Google finally put the world's oceans on the map.
During a splashy presentation Monday at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the Internet giant unveiled a feature in its Google Earth program that will allow users to swim through undersea canyons as deep as the Mariana Trench and encounter creatures like a critically endangered, prehistoric fish called the coelacanth.

Google also unveiled an interactive, 3-D map of Mars that enables visitors to whisk, as if by rocket ship, over Martian mountains that dwarf Everest and scan Martian rocks through the eyes of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
The 3-D Martian map is the first result of a 3-year-old agreement between Google and NASA's Ames Research Center to bring the mountains of research on Mars to the public.
Besides getting close looks at rocks analyzed by the rovers to uncover Mars' watery past, the new program will enable visitors to skim the surface through the eyes of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Google board member and former Vice President Al Gore, who attended the event, called the latest version of Google Earth "an extremely powerful educational tool" that he hoped would influence the Climate Conference in Copenhagen later this year.
Google hopes to inspire a public push for more marine exploration. Only 5% of the ocean floor has been mapped in any detail, and less than 1% of the oceans is designated marine protected areas.

Google Earth Plumbs the Ocean Depths
The software now lets users dive miles beneath the ocean waves.
Video by Google - link
* Zoom from space to street level tour the world
* Find maps, driving directions, hotels, restaurants, and more

Functies van Google Earth 5.0 (bèta):

* Historische beelden van over de hele wereld
* Informatie over de zeebodem en het zeeoppervlak afkomstig van oceaanexperts
* Vereenvoudigd rondreizen met audio- en stemopname

Download Google Earth 5.0
Google Ocean will let users explore shipwrecks and reefs in the deep blue sea
The latest version of Google Earth lets people plunge beneath the sea, swim around underwater volcanoes, hover above shipwrecks and navigate mountains on the sea bed.
The Ocean in Google Earth software also includes video and photographs of thousands of marine species, and lets virtual divers follow whales and sharks tagged with satellite tracking devices.
The undersea 3D world was created with help from more than 25 leading marine scientists.