Happy Birthday to this Blog! And hello to a new blog on bacterial pathogenomics

Last week, while I was away on vacation in France, this blog had its first birthday. During this last year, the blog has plotted the completion, publication and reception of my book The Rough Guide to Evolution, but has covered much more besides in its 193 postings—from evolutionary tourism to flagellar biology. According to Google Analytics, the blog has received over 23,000 visits from 137 countries! 

It is unclear quite how well the book is selling, as I am still awaiting accurate figures for the first half of the year, but I have been told that worldwide sales so far are likely to be around 10,000-10,500, which means that there is a good chance I will have just outsold my advance against royalties in the first six months of the book's life!

But now I must confess that a change is at hand. I have to re-focus my efforts on my "day job" as a microbiologist, so, although I won't be closing this blog, I will be posting less often here. Instead, I will be using the insights into blogging that I have gained from this blog to drive forward a new blog Pathogens: Genes and Genomes, which will convey the excitement generated by the collision of high-throughput sequencing and clinical and environmental bacteriology. Feel free to join us there and to raise a glass to The Rough Guide to Evolution, book and blog!