Planet Earth goes online

This press release just came through; sounds like it will be a pretty great resource. It's not up yet though — check it out in a few days.

The Natural Environment Research Council — the UK's leading organisation that funds research into the environmental sciences — is launching an online version of its award-winning magazine, Planet Earth, on 29 September 2008.

The website will be updated daily and feature news, features, blogs, opinion, podcasts and video from the environmental science community on climate change, biodiversity loss, volcanoes, earthquakes, the rainforests, oceans and poles. The content will appeal to a wide, non-specialist audience.

Editor Owen Gaffney said: "Environmental issues are at the top of the political and news agendas. We need to make independent, impartial environmental research news available to a wider audience. Planet Earth online will do just that.

"We have unique access to a massive range of science. Our scientists travel to some of the most hostile and remote places on the planet to do their research, such as the Arctic, Antarctica, the Serengeti and the Amazon rainforests. We will run news, blogs and video from all of these places.

"Our research is tackling the biggest environmental challenge facing this planet ­ sustaining its life support system. There couldn't be a more important time to communicate this research."

A key difference between Planet Earth online and other science websites is the access it will have to a wealth of cutting-edge research. Many of the features will be written by researchers and then edited by experienced editors.

"We want the website to be a key resource for the general public, students, teachers, journalists, researchers as well as policy-makers and MPs," said Owen.

The content of the website in the first weeks will include:

• SPECIAL REPORT: Global water resources
• SPECIAL REPORT: Ocean acidification
• SPECIAL REPORT: Poverty alleviation in China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa
• FEATURE: The Amazon's carbon budget laid bare
• FEATURE: Beyond the abyss — life in Earth's deepest trenches
• FEATURE: Africa Gomez's extreme survivors
• FEATURE: When scum ruled the Earth
• BLOG: The cruellest place on Earth —working in the Afar depression
• BLOG: Cape Farewell — scientists, writers and artists in the Arctic
• PODCAST: Honey trap — robot spiders catch surprised bees

Research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and its partners — such as the Met Office, Defra, the Environment Agency, NASA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the European Space Agency and other research councils — is widely regarded as the best in the world. Planet Earth online will report from all parts of the research community supported by NERC, as well as related work from its national and international partners.

(I'm resisting the urge to make snarky comments about scum ruling the earth.)