One more day until the Darwin 200! woooooooo
This has been posted elsewhere, but needs to be in this thread for the sake of posterity: Sir David Attenborough's most recent documentary celebrating Darwin and the tree of life:
A high quality version of the documentary in full is available on the same youtube channel as the preview above.
A bunch of neat Darwin podcasts over at
Nature:
Home : Nature podcast
via PZ
Larry Moran was featured in an article in The Star discussing Darwin:
Quote:
TheStar.com | GTA | Darwin still spurs tributes, debates
Larry Moran has this recurring argument with his daughter – though the two scientists put a unique twist on the usual father-daughter conflict.
He says the man credited with discovering evolution is the greatest scientist the world has known. His daughter – a physicist – favours the man who discovered gravity.
"I say, without hesitation, that (Charles) Darwin was the greatest scientist who ever lived, and I'm happy to debate that with any (Isaac) Newton supporters," says Moran, a biochemistry professor at the University of Toronto.
In fact, in the course of an hour, he says it at least three times.
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Parents looking to get their kids thinking about Darwin for the big 200 will enjoy this short comic-style slide show of Darwin as a young naturalist. From NewScientist:
Here is a video interview with "singing Darwin scholar"
Richard Milner:
The NYTimes has a special page up with lots of Darwin articles:
Charles Darwin - News - The New York Times
One of the articles published today aroused responses from
Jerry Coyne and
PZ Myers.
The Royal Mail in the UK is issuing special stamps honoring Darwin tomorrow:
Quote:
Royal Mail -- Darwin Stamps
Issue date: 12th February 2009
We’ve created this stunning issue to pay tribute to Charles Darwin, the man who transformed the way many of us think about the natural world.
An extraordinary thinker, Darwin’s findings led him to question our understanding of how life on Earth evolved. This culminated in the publication of On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection. Now 200 years after his birth, and 150 years after his findings triggered a debate that still rages today, we celebrate this double anniversary and the man with the revolutionary thoughts with a revolutionary set of stamps. As you can see, these Mint Stamps are far from ordinary. Each stamp has a ‘cut-out’ and ‘peg’ jigsaw design to demonstrate how the various areas of Darwin’s studies came together to inform his theory of Natural Selection.
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This is by no means recent, but somewhat related to the above article, and certainly very interesting(at least to the non-UK members). The Bank of England issued £10 bills honoring Darwin:
BBC News | UK | How to join the noteworthy
Bank of England|Banknotes|Current Banknotes|£10
Apparently the fact that Darwin's large beard would be particularly difficult to forge helped influence the decision
One last general article discussing Darwin history and the upcoming celebration, from USAToday:
Quote:
Darwin celebrated, despite controversy, on 200th birthday - USATODAY.com
Darwin celebrated, despite controversy, on 200th birthday
Charles Darwin would no doubt be surprised to learn that, 127 years after his death, people around the world will be celebrating his 200th birthday on Thursday.
Biology's "reluctant revolutionary," as English historian James Moore calls him, was a quiet man and frequently ill. But there will be nothing low-key about "Darwin Day," the anniversary of the English naturalist's Feb. 12, 1809, birth.
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