January 22nd 2008- Cherishing the Earth. How to care for God's Creation. by Martin & Margot Hodson is now in Oxford, and we have some copies! This project has been 11 years in the making. Now we just have to sell some books!

January 14th 2008- The website for Cherishing the Earth. How to care for God's Creation. (Monarch Books, Oxford) by Martin & Margot Hodson is now available for viewing. Pre-publication copies will be available shortly!

SANGSTER, A.G. & HODSON, M.J. (2007) Silicification of conifers and its significance to the environment. In "Plants, People and Places: Recent Studies in Phytolithic Analysis." (ed. M. Madella & D. Zurro). Oxbow Books, Oxford 79-91.

October 9th 2007- I spoke on "Human Population, the Environment and Faith" in a special session on "Faiths, Culture and the Environment" at Global Challenges, Global Solutions, The Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management annual conference. See http://www.ciwem.org/events/annual_conference/

June 2007- Coming out of the Prague meeting last year is my first ever publication in the field of environmental theology (well possibly my chapter is more theological education that anything!):

HODSON, M.J. (2007) Environmental Theology Courses in Europe- Where are we now? In "The Place of Environmental Theology: A guide for seminaries, colleges and universities." (eds. Weaver, J., Hodson M.R.). Published jointly by the Whitley Trust, UK and IBTS, Prague. pp. 107-120.

April 18th 2007. I attended the second meeting of IBiS at the British Geological Survey in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, UK. The meeting mostly concerned the application of isotopes in biogenic silica to palaeoecology. I gave a talk: Martin J Hodson, Adrian G Parker, Melanie J Leng & Hilary J Sloane-

Silicon and oxygen isotopes in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) phytoliths- implications for palaeoecology and archaeology. We are now writing this work up for publication next year. The conference was excellent, and we made some useful contacts.

March 2007. This month my latest paper in our series on mineral depostion in conifer needles was published in the special volume from the Prague "Acid Rain 2005" conference, and in collaboration with scientists from Canada and France:

SANGSTER, A.G., LING, L., GERARD, F. & HODSON, M.J. (2007) X-ray microanalysis of needles from Douglas fir growing in environments of contrasting acidity. Water, Air and Soil Pollution: Focus 7, 143-149. Abstract

December 13th 2006. The hodsons.org web site has been archived for the first time by the British Library's UK web archiving consortium, and you can see it at Hodsons Archive. So far they have archived the site once at:

13 Dec 2006. It is interesting that the site is one of only 86 UK sites catalogued under "Religion", one of 36 under "Life Sciences" and one of 94 for "Environment". Very few personal sites seem to be archived so far, and it is possible that we were selected for archiving because of the relatively "serious" nature of the material on hodsons.org. Not quite sure what historians will make of us!

PARKER, A.G., GOUDIE, A.S., STOKES, S., WHITE K., HODSON, M.J., MANNING, M. & KENNET, D. (2006) A record of Holocene climate change from lake geochemical analyses in southeastern Arabia. Quaternary Research 66, 465-476.

PARKER, A.G., PRESTON, G., WALKINGTON, H. & HODSON, M.J. (2006) Developing a framework of Holocene climatic change and landscape archaeology for the lower Gulf region, southeastern Arabia. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 17, 125-130.

August 23rd to 27th, 2006. The Theology of Creation Care: Christian Environmental Stewardship was the title of a major conference held at the International Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS) in Prague in collaboration with the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN). A major aim of the conference was to look at how environmental concern might be integrated into the curricula of theological colleges. Nearly forty delegates from across Europe attended the conference. I gave a talk on the Certificate in Christian Rural and Environmental Studies (CRES), and led the session on web resources. It is hoped that the materials produced by the workshops will be assembled into one document which can then be sent to ECEN, and used to inform the European Ecumenical Assembly next year in Sibiu, Roumania.

April 26th to 27th, 2006. Adrian Parker and I drove up to Lake Windermere to the Low Wood Hotel at Ambleside for the launch meeting of IBiS, a new research grouping looking principally at applications of isotopes to the study of silicon in biogeochemical cycles and palaeoecology. I gave a talk, "From the soil to the cell: how phytoliths form in plants." Adrian and I made a lot of useful contacts at what was a very good and very friendly meeting in an excellent venue. This was the first of these meetings, and we look forward to the next!

February 11th 2006. For some completely mad reason I ended up on the organising group for the Climate Change conference Operation Noah in Oxford. Well I know the reason- it is just a very important topic, and the more people that are informed about it, so that they can take action the better. Once again my major role was to run the web site and much of the publicity, but I also helped sort out the workshops. We had about 150 people and the conference was another major success.

November 1st, 2005. The publication of my first major human nutrition paper! Well actually, and to be honest, I acted as plant silicon consultant to Jonathan Powell and his group who had conducted a major survey of silicon in the British diet: POWELL, J.J., MCNAUGHTON, S.A., JUGDAOHSINGH, R., ANDERSON, S.H.C., DEAR, J., KHOT, F., MOWATT, L., GLEASON, K.L., SYKES, M., THOMPSON, R.P.H., BOLTON-SMITH C. & HODSON, M.J. (2005) A provisional database for the silicon content of foods in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Nutrition 94, 804-812.

September 21st, 2005. The publication on-line of my most taxonomic ever paper! The most complete survey of silicon content in the plant kingdom ever published, but it is more than just a survey. Have a look at: HODSON, M.J., WHITE, P.J., MEAD, A. & BROADLEY, M.R. (2005) Phylogenetic variation in the silicon composition of plants. Annals of Botany 96, 1027-1046. Abstract

June 9th to June 18th, 2005. I was fortunate to attend Acid Rain 2005 in Prague, Czech Republic. I took full advantage of the visit by taking the pre-conference trip to Solling and the Harz mountains in Germany, some of the most famous acid rain research sites in the world. For the mid-conference trip I visited the Ore Mountains in the Northern part of the Czech Republic, which included an interesting visit to a coal-fired power station- now equipped with flue gas desulphurization. From a teaching angle this was probably one of the most useful conferences I have ever attended.

But I also went for research! In total I was involved in three papers at the conference, including work on mineral analysis, x-ray microanalysis and tissue culture. Our x-ray microanalysis paper was accepted for the conference proceedings. Excellent time in Prague!

February 26th, 2005. The conference Climate Change: How Christians Respond in High Wycombe was a fantastic success. I was on the steering group for the conference, arranged the exhibitions, and managed the web site and the subsequent web report. A lot of work!

January 9th, 2005. Margot and I visited the home of Emanuel and Peggy Epstein in Davis, whilst on a family visit to California. Emanuel is one of the world's leading experts on plant mineral nutrition, and since the early 1990's has written some major reviews on plant silicon. Such a nice visit!