In an excellent essay on finding real meaning in the Deepwater Horizon blowout that the media seem to be entirely missing, Bill McKibben reminds us:

When a well started spewing oil off Santa Barbara in 1969, it spurred the first Earth Day, which in turn launched the environmental movement and a fundamental questioning of the balance between humans and the rest of nature. It turned out, in other words, to be a real Moment.

via youtube.com

If you are on Facebook, become a fan of the International Year of Biodiversity 2010 page for more information on the issues throughout this year.

The iTunes store has a new Creationist Claims Index app, which at 99 cents might just be the thing I should recommend to my students as I begin teaching Intro Bio (Bio 1B) next week. I just hope I don't have to keep turning to it myself too often. I also wonder if this might have helped last year when I had a creationist grad student in my very lab?! I do have and recommend the paperback version, but having it handy one a phone might have helped others in the lab who got into head-scratchingly odd conversations with that student.

As this last year of the so called "noughties" winds down, I would like to share with you a remarkable video, and two stories, of wildlife conservation amid human enterprise, that straddle some of the gamut of conflicting emotions experienced by those involved in any kind of biodiversity conservation during this dismal decade. That entire gamut, of course, ranges from the absolute pit of despair over what we are doing to other lifeforms on this Earth, all the way up to cautious (but ever so skeptical) optimism that maybe, just maybe, we aren't entirely screwed after all, and there may yet be hope for us all.

Let's start with the video, shall we? Of the remarkable human presence in Yosemite National Park in California:

Enjoy your break with some good science readings from the blogosphere in the latest Scientia Pro Publica (issue #18) blog carnival. I posted it yesterday on Reconciliation Ecology, so pop on over there if you haven't seen it already!

Wow! What an incredible tale this is, from last night's "Moment of Geopolitical Geek" segment of the Rachel Maddow show on the MSNBC network. (Does it air much outside the US? I've got no idea! But I hope at least the following embedded video from their website works internationally. Otherwise, here's a direct link to the video.)

I've been away from this blog, and blogging in general, for a while with grant deadlines and end of semester issues for the past some weeks, but am beginning to catch up again as the holiday break is about to begin. This place looks much nicer since the last time I wrote here - thank you Martin for really sprucing up the joint! I look forward to exploring the new features, and to contributing a bit more often. For now, while taking a break from grading (or is it marking for folks in the UK?) exams and term papers, I want to share something I played a small part in the making of, something you might find useful if you encounter creationism much in your daily lives.