The buzz these days–if you read a just a little on evolution and particularly that theories of Darwin–is flowers.

The New York Times wrote about it; it also hit the Danish science media. Two American scientists (Jan Salick, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Wayne Law, a graduate student, Washington University) have been researching on the snow lotus. It appears, that one species of the plant has been decreasing in height over time. Why is that?

The basic reasoning is, that people like to pick the taller, more beautiful flowers. So in areas where tourists (and other flower-picking people) are dense in number, the lower and/or more unattractive flowers will survive. In fact, the snow lotus lost 10 centimeters of its height over 100 years.

This is at the very essence of natural selection. Go to the NYT story I linked on top, to read more on this.

Another shot from the Italy trip three weeks ago.

Tina Dickow (Tina Dico) will hold a concert in Copenhagen on September 7, 2005, according to her official website (www.tinadickow.dk (Danish) / www.tinadico.com (English)). She will play at Ideal Bar. Be sure to keep yourself updated via her website in order to not miss out on this musical experience.

Also, her new album is coming up within a few days. There is already a single out as well as a track exclusive to iTunes. Her previous work is also available on iTunes (as well as on CD, of course).

Ira Flatow, host of the Science Friday podcast, has a great interview with Thomas Friedman, three-time winner of the Pulitzer prize. I have read Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree, which I recommend if you want to read about being local in an increasingly globalised world.

Listen to the Science Friday podcast with Friedman here.

Among other things, they discuss some of the issues in his latest book, The World Is Flat. That one is on my to read list.

On Wednesday, Skype hands out free SkypeOut minutes.

Check Skype for more info.

The face-lifted version of my website is now online. Content-wise, there is still some ground to be covered, and it is by no means a substitute for the blog, but, rather, complementary.

Go to my website to see the face-lifted design.

I have finally seed up an RSS feed in addition to my Atom feed. Click on the xml button on the right bar, to get my feed.

For those of you who are new to RSS and what it means to subscribe to it, check this out:

• Wikipedia on RSS - a good introduction

If you use Firefox, I can recommend the Sage plugin, which I use as my rss reader.

As I think I already mentioned, I took close to 600 photographs during the Italy trip, so there is more to come. Here is a view from the big bridge connecting San Marco and Academia in Venice.

These are, like the Campari shot, some of the very first photos from the trip. On the left hand, Morten is getting ready to shoot from the boat, which we took from the airport to San Marco (still Venice), and on the right, I am shooting some architecture across the canal (Morten took this picture).

The first picture I had through PS from my Italy trip.

The building in the picture is not actually in Venice, but on the neighbouring island Lido, which we passed on our trip with the vaporetto (some kind of water bus) from the airport to San Marco.

I have just returned from Italy (on Monday), where I toured Nothern Italy with a friend of mine, Morten, which you might already know.

First we flew to Venice (Saturday) and had a look at this fascinating, but also in so many ways strange city. On Sunday we drove to Verona to have a look at the Romeo and Juliette city, but — more importantly — to see Verdi’s opera Aida at Arena di Verona, an ancient, Roman colosseum-like amphitheatre. If you at some time are in the area, do not miss out on this great opportunity. Below is a picture from inside the arena about half an hour before the opera starts.

We returned to Venice in the middle of Sunday night, and stayed in Venice for another two days. At this time it is very turisty. You should go outside of this season, and pick a place to live that is not that close to the San Marco square.

On Wednesday we took the train to Florence, where we were to visit one of my very good friends from New York — Paolo. There are pictures of him in some of my earlier posts from New York. We stayed at his parents summer residence outside of Florence–a beautiful olive yard.

On Saturday, we took the train to Milan, where we finished off the tour with some power shopping. More photos to come, hopefully, once I have gone through the more than 1.5k pics we took down there.

Finally, I have had the time to look at my Los Angeles (FEB 2005) photographs. Clicking on the link below, will take you to a dozen photos from the below mentioned visit to LA. We were placed among the finalists in the competition ahead of Berkeley, Wharton, and Thammasat.

Photos from LA / click here