Happy 300th Birthday, Carl.

Today we celebrate Carl Linnaeus' 300th birthday, and how better than to listen to a truly excellent episode of BBC Radio 4 programme, Frontiers, which this week rightly honours the undisputed father of taxonomy.

The Frontiers programme also does a bang-up job introducing J. Craig Venter's project the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition, which is serving as a key model for what we intend to do aboard the Beagle.

More than that, the programme ranges 'round significant Beagle Project haunts including The Natural History Museum, full time employer of yours truly, and where I will be giving a free public talk this Friday on our project to re-survey and "DNA barcode" Darwin's meadow at Down House.

About the meadow, Darwin wrote "If ever you catch quite a beginner, & want to give him a taste for Botany tell him to make perfect list of some little field or wood. Both Miss Thorley & I agree that it gives a really uncommon interest to the work, having a nice little definite world to work on, instead of the awful abyss & immensity of all British Plants."

And so it is for us. Before embarking on our planned project to DNA barcode all British plants, we are starting with Darwin's self same little meadow, just to make sure our methods are up to snuff.

Thanks very much indeed to Richard Carter FCD for bringing the above quote to my attention. A real gem!