Year Of Science

This year, the year of 2009, has been declared The Year of Science. By whom, you ask? Well, these guys. Why? Because there are a heck of a lot of scientastic anniversaries being celebrated this year. Like, Charles Darwin will have been born exactly 200 years ago this year on February 12th. Like, Origin of Species was first published November 24, 1859, making this year its 150th year in existence. Like a couple of other cool things the Brian Greene talked to Ira Flatow about on friday (if you really care all that much, listen here).

Long and short of it is, there are going to be themes and events celebrating those themes for every month of the year, because it is The Year of Science! January is the Process and Nature of Science - an intro month to the whole thing. My birthday month (October) gets Geosciences and Planet Earth; coolness. I'd recommend checking out the theme page to see what you get as well (September is Biodiversity and Conservation). And although there are no events yet planned in my neck of the woods, I'm sure that will be rectified soon. Plus, there's always the World Science Faire in New York City June 11th through the 14th. Sounds potentially fun. I'm almost considering volunteering.

And for anyone who is puzzled and wondering why I'm so hip to this whole year of science thing, given my absolute abhorrence for all 3 of the science classes I took in college, to you I say... shut up. But seriously now, those classes were not of the good. And the year has themes! How could anything that has themed months be a bad? Also, Science Friday and The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe have taught me that I actually do like science - I'm just not good at doing the science. Kind of like how Planet Money taught me that I can listen to economic talk without wanting to kill someone or becoming extremely obstinate. So, I'm willing to give this a try; to pay attention and learn some facts each month pertaining to the topic at hand. And I'm also almost willing to promise that I will highlight the month in question's theme and some of the info I've gleaned about that topic. It should be fun. Or disastrous. It's hard to tell right now.