I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design. Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

David Grinspoon is Curator of Astrobiology in the Department of Space Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Adjunct Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Science at the University of Colorado. His research is on comparative planetology, more specifically atmospheric evolution, with a focus on Venus.

Greendope brings you user-submitted environmental news from around the globe.

Website companion to the book Lonely Planets by David Grinspoon.

A map of the city that shows where the bloggers are, organized by subway stop. Find out who's blogging in your neighborhood!

Odeo is a creative way to record and share audioand it's free.

A cool online application that makes words that you type in from letters in Flickr photos. Try it out!

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever. Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.