Karen James is a postdoctoral researcher in the Botany Department at the Natural History Museum in London. She is also the science coordinator for The Beagle Project which aims to achieve the most compelling event of the Darwin 200th anniversary period by building a sailing replica of HMS Beagle and circumnavigating the globe in a new Voyage of the Beagle. More of Karen's writing can be found on the Beagle Project Blog under the blog alias "nunatak".