http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/

The Leakey Foundation is "a member supported organization committed to research related to human origins." This well-designed, interactive website offers a variety of information related to the research interests including information about Recently Funded Projects, Educational Resources, and News and Upcoming Events. One exceptional feature of the website is the Audio Archives that allows visitors to listen to recorded excerpts from interviews with, and lectures by, renowned scientists like Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, Margaret Mead, and Mary Leakey. The Educational Resources section also offers great features including an extensive Bibliography, Recommended Links to other quality websites, a Visual Glossary, and an Ask A Scientist service whereby users can email questions to the Leakey Foundation. This website artfully integrates good photos of past and present with text sections and also contains biographies of the Leakey Family. [NL]

http://www.mnh.si.edu/livingfossils/

Hosted by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, this website reports on a Smithsonian expedition that explored the Bahamian Seafloor. The expedition brought together a research team of scientists who collaborated "on a number of projects exploring both the present and the past through the natural history of deep-sea organisms and microorganisms." The website includes an overview of the expedition, short bios for the participating scientists, and a feature section on the remarkable Slitsnail Gastropods. The site also offers a small annotated Photo Gallery of Images from the Sea Floor, and a brief geographical section on the Bahamas that touches on some human and natural history. A final gem of this website is the Dispatches from the Ship section which shares several expedition stories. [NL]

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/apr/mammals/index.html

This website hosts an NPR feature from April 24, 2002 reporting on the discovery of an early mammal ancestor, called Eomaia. The report tells the story of the amazing fossil that was discovered in the Yixian Formation located in northeastern China, where feathered dinosaur, plant, insect, and other early mammal fossils have been found. The Chipmunk-sized Eomaia lived 125 million years ago making it "the earliest known ancestor of placental mammals, a group that includes humans." The site links to a good, clear photo of the fossil, a map showing the location of the Eomaia Fossil Site, an Art Reconstruction of Eomaia, and an expanded evolutionary timetable. There are links to related Resources, and site visitors with RealOne Players can listen to Richard Harris' report on this discovery. [NL]

http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/skeletal/menudir.htm

The Skeletal Explorer website is part of the Class Web Materials for Mesa Community College's Anthropology Department. This well-designed, creative site opens with an image of a baseball cap-wearing skeleton viewing skeletal images on a computer screen. The Main Menu offers a Skeletal Overview and eight more sections including Crania, Axial Skeleton, Appendicular Skeleton, and Bone Growth. Each section is nicely organized with multiple subsections, clear, concise information, and many great photos and illustrations. Most of the sections also contain fun, interactive Self-Tests. [NL]

http://www.adelie.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

This outstanding, comprehensive website was created by two amateur British penguinologists who have a longstanding interest in penguins and have seen all 17 species in the wild. Pete and Barb's Penguin Pages website contains "more than 150 information pages and 250 photographs." Their site is well-organized and includes an index that lays out the main page and subsections. The main sections include Factual Pages (biological and environmental information about penguins), The Rookery (links to good penguin sites), For Teachers (penguin educational ideas and resources), and a Photo Index (Clickable thumbnails of penguin photos arranged by species). Pete and Barb recommend an up-to-date browser for their site however they do offer a previous, non up-dated version of the site with fewer graphics for those with older browsers. [NL]

http://www.niwa.co.nz/pubs/wa/11-3/beneath

This article about plant growth beneath sea ice by Anne-Maree Shwarz appears in Water and Atmosphere online, a quarterly publication of the New Zealand-based National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Shwarz's "article describes some of the linkages between ice-cover, underwater light and primary production that have been investigated" by ICECUBE, a NIWA research program working to "determine relationships between sea ice and the composition and functioning of benthic communities." Amazingly, as this article describes in greater detail, enough nutrients and light are available under the sea-ice to allow "the growth of high concentrations of micro-algae." This webpage also links to other Water and Atmosphere online articles which include topics such as Ministry of Fisheries Antarctic research and Assessing biodiversity on the Antarctic sea floor. For New Zealand educators this webpage links to Teacher Resources: Curriculum Connections, a page that "relates articles in recent issues of Water and Atmosphere online to the NZ Curriculum and the NCES Achievement Standards." [NL]