San Francisco's Exploratorium showcases the work of researchers at the Natural History Museum in London and Las Cuevas Biological Station in Belize, who are investigating the nature and diversity of life. From Jungle to Lab is part of the Exploratorium's Origin Project, created to explain how scientists explore "the beginnings of the universe, of matter, of the earth, and of life itself." This well-designed Web site contains loads of multimedia features, such as a slide show of Las Cuevas (including a 360 view of the biological station), video and audio clips of researchers explaining their work, Web casts, and much more. The contents of this site are thoughtfully organized and skillfully presented. For example, the section titled Ideas appears as a virtual field notebook, each page addressing a different aspect of evolutionary mechanism for biodiversity. In all, this is a fantastic Web site that is worth a visit for design features alone, if not the enlightening content.

Though the complete Society for Conservation Biology site was previously featured (check out the 09-17-2004 Scout Report), this free textbook resource supported by the site is worth highlighting independently. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate level courses, Conservation Biology for All curates commentary from leading conservation thinkers, bringing together expert scholarship on a range of relevant topics. The more than 300 pages and 16 chapters explore topics such as the history and future of conservation science (Chapter 1), invasive species management (Chapter 7), and humans' role in sustainability (Chapter 14). A nice feature of the textbook is the Suggested Reading and Relevant Websites sub-sections that conclude each chapter. These suggestions can help professors pull together syllabuses or assist readers interested in digging deeper into a topic. At the link above, readers can download the entire textbook or pick and choose chapters of interest. Conservation Biology for All was published in 2010 and edited by Navjot S. Sodhi and Paul R. Ehrlich.