Happy Darwin's day

In case you haven't noticed, today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. It's also the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, but while he was extremely important for the US, Darwin had a much more global importance.

If you look around in the science blogsphere, you'll find many good posts about Charles Darwin, so I'll suggest my readers go explore them.

Darwin's letters put online

BBC reports that Darwin's letters will be put online.

Darwin's letters archived on web

The Darwin Correspondence project has existed offline since 1974. It has so far published 15 volumes of the scientist's letters as books.

An agreement with the publisher of the books means the new website will offer digitised versions of the texts freely available to anyone four years behind the hard copies.

Nearly 5,000 pieces of correspondence will be fully searchable when the site launches on Thursday 17 May.

I believe the letter can be found at this site, when they are made public.

Darwin wife's diaries online

Via Readerville

Wife's diaries shed light on Darwin

The diaries of Charles Darwin's wife have been published online, giving an unparalleled insight into the day-to-day life of the world's greatest naturalist.

Sixty pocket books are still in existence. They cover Emma Darwin's life from 1824, when on January 1 the 16-year-old girl records that she "played at charades", until her death in 1896.

"These books were found in a cardboard box in an old cupboard about 20 years ago," said the director of Darwin Online, Dr John van Wyhe. "People weren't really interested in the day-to-day Darwin then, just the Origin of Species."

This intimate record of Darwin's daily life, known to only a handful of scholars at Cambridge university until now, is in such a fragile state that academics could only use microfiche copies. Now it can be read in facsimile all over the world.

They can be found here.

I haven't read them yet, so I can't say anyting meaningful about them, but I thought it might interest some of my readers (*cough* PZ *cough*)

Darwin movie planned

This should be of interest to at least some of my readers.

Producer Jeremy Thomas plans a movie about Charles Darwin, based upon Annie's Box, the biography of Darwin, written by Darwin's great-great grandson Randall Keynes.

More here.

Jeremy Thomas' entry at IMDB.

Sounds quite interesting.

Update: PZ has now written about the movie. Since he has read the book it's based upon, he also adds some details about it.