The Darwin Effect

A new interactive online report assesses the impact of On the Origin of Species

In 1859, English naturalist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Introducing his then-radical theory that species evolved from a common ancestor through a process called natural selection, Origins is the foundation upon which evolutionary biology has been built.

But the effects of his revolutionary idea have been far-reaching, impacting such fields as anthropology, biology, geosciences, polar sciences and astronomy.

So, exactly how has this seminal book influenced science and society during the last 150 years?

An international group of scientists attempts to answer this question in a new, beautifully illustrated National Science Foundation (NSF) interactive online report, "Evolution of Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin's On the Origin of Species."

The report features a comprehensive timeline of scientific discoveries that gives particular attention to evolution-related events spanning the decades from Nicolaus Copernicus' 1543 treatise supporting heliocentrism to the faster sequencing of genomes in 2007.

Darwin was also painfully aware of mankind's disregard for our fellow planetary inhabitants. "Animals," he said, "whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) letter urging American lawmakers to increase conservation funding directed overseas to save global priority species in their natural habitats (U.S. citizens)
• Sign a petition to the United Nations to show your support of biodiversity
• Support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the world
• Build a pond and study the many species that will undoubtedly make it home, or at least visit
  
• Join the "Million Ponds Project"
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

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• New Kids on the Block (June 4, 2009)
• The Sands of Time (May 22, 2009)
  
• The Missing Link (May 21, 2009)
• The Air That We Breathe (April 15, 2009)
• The Shadow Lives of Others (March 3, 2009)
• Fighting Where the Wild Things Are (February 27, 2009)
• From Snakes on a Boat to Guam's Silent Forests (February 7, 2009)
• The Common Ancestor of All Life on Earth (December 21, 2008)
• Saving Wildlife on the Back Nine (December 4, 2008)
• So Long to Species at Walden (Yellowstone, Too) (October 30, 2008)
• One-Third of Coral Reefs Face Extinction (July 11, 2008)

image: J. Cameron, 1869