Germany's renewable energy institute has calculated that global CO2 emissions fell 1.3 percent in 2009. The organisation, which advises the German government, pinned the credit for the fall on the global recession and on greater investment in renewable energy around the world.

That investment rose slightly last year, from 120 billion euros to 125 billion euros, but the lag time between investment and the roll-out of new power generation equipment would mean that 2009 actually saw the benefits of prior increases in investment.

Every year we ask our summer intern to do a survey of cover art elements for the top US fantasy novels published in the previous year. This year we looked at covers from 2009, and compared them against 2008′s findings.

This claim is one that the young-earthers have been making. The claim is that the theory of evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 178 years. This is a compilation of the claims over time. The purpose of this compilation is three-fold. First, it is to show that the claim has been made for a long, long time. Secondly, it is to show that entire careers have passed without seeing any of this movement away from evolution. Third, it is to show that the creationists are merely making these statements for the purpose of keeping hope alive that they are making progress towards their goal. In point of fact, no such progress is being made as anyone who has watched this area for the last 40 years can testify. The claim is false as history and present-day events show, yet that doesn’t stop anyone wanting to sell books from making that claim.