On Wednesday night four contributors to the Beagle project were involved in a serious car crash in Argentina, near Puerto Madryn. Petra Niegeman, who was visiting her partner, soundman Charles Kersten, died in the accident. The ship’s doctor Charles Boissevain and historian Jane Cameron were seriously injured and are still in hospital in critical condition. Radio reporter Marten Minkema suffered minor injuries. VPRO and the clipper Stad Amsterdam are doing everything within their means to support family, friends and colleagues.

The Beagle project reconstructs Darwin’s 5-year long voyage on the HMS Beagle in the course of one year, and makes an attempt to assess where the world stands today in light of Darwin’s evolution theory. As Charles Darwin pondered on the origin of species, our focus now is on the future: Do we have reason to worry? Visit Beagle site.

The hand-written annotations Charles Darwin made on 700 of the books in his personal library were painstakingly transcribed in the 1980s. Now, thanks to high-resolution digital imagery and an international partnership between the University of Cambridge, the Darwin Digital Library of Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Natural History Museum in London and the Biodiversity Heritage Library a collective of ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions in the US and UK, Darwin’s marginalia will be digitally married to the texts they illuminate, allowing scholars to learn his thoughts on a wide range of topics. Read more: Digital libraries bridge the Atlantic : JISC.

Follow the Beagle voyage in English here. DUTCH: Het mooiste is de clipper live te volgen via Google map. In dit screen zit ook een window met 4 actuele webcams!  En kijk vanavond 13 september:  op TV om 21:20uur op Nederland 2, online om 21:20uur op http://player.omroep.nl/?zenid=002 en op deze site vanaf 22:30. Praat ook mee op Twitter – gebruik #VPROBGL in je tweets & doe mee in het gesprek over de uitzending!

Download an audio file of Sarah Darwin talking to Michael Reiss about her work and about her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin. Listen here: Sarah Darwin interview. Follow Sarah on the Clipper Stad Amsterdam for an epic voyage around the world via Twitter!

Beagle ship the Clipper Stad Amsterdam is an experiment in itself. This three mast sailing ship will be rigged with advanced scientific measurement equipment. Scientists from various disciplines and from all over the world will execute experiments on board this sailing science lab. The ship also has a built-in TV studio from which parts of the series will be produced and broadcast. Read more: Beagle: On the future of species – Darwin.

In het Darwinjaar onderzoekt de VPRO, in samenwerking met Teleac en de Vlaamse VRT, de richting van die ontwikkeling. In twee series zal de VPRO de route van de HMS Beagle opnieuw bevaren met de clipper Stad Amsterdam. De eerste serie gaat van Engeland naar het zuidelijkste puntje van Zuid-Amerika. In 2010 brengt de tweede serie het schip naar de Galapagos eilanden, Australie en Zuid-Afrika. In juni keert de clipper Stad Amsterdam als Beagle: In het kielzog van Darwin terug in Engeland. Ga naar de website: Over Beagle – Beagle: In het kielzog van Darwin.