Darwin 200: Beyond the origin February 2009 sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin and November 2009 the 150th anniversary of the publication of his great work, On the Origin of Species. In the intervening two centuries, no single scientist has matched Darwin’s impact on the sciences, politics, religion, philosophy and art. This issue of Nature [see Introduction page 295; Editorial, p. 281] brings together news, research and analysis of Darwin, his life, his science and his legacy. Darwin saw the eye — so complex and seemingly useless with any of its components part-formed — as an obstacle to the acceptance of natural selection. Today we know it as one of evolution’s crowning glories — celebrated with a fold-out pictorial feature [p. 304] and current research [p. 395] that refers right back to the ‘protoeyes’ hypothesized by Darwin. In later writings (Descent of Man ,1871), Darwin touched on a topic that still divides evolutionary biologists — group selection. Does natural selection work for individuals against the interests of the group? Or is such thinking a historical mistake? We report on the debate and why it is important [p. 296], and review a ‘landmark book’ on the superorgansims of the insect world, where the group looms large [p. 320]. Extinction comes with the evolutionary territory. But is it for ever? With the publication of the genome sequence of the long-gone woolly mammoth [pp. 387, 330], some researchers are even claiming that mammoths will one day be recreated [News Feature p. 310]. Biologists tend to see evolved living systems as finely tuned machines, prone to failure if one component is faulty. But, as Tanguy Chouard reveals, this is not what happens in the real world [News Feature p. 300]. Plenty for biologists to celebrate and plenty of places to do it: we have trawled the world for events commemorating Darwin’s life and works [p. 322] and trawled the publishers’ lists for books doing the same [Books & Arts p. 323]. Not quite everybody will be in celebratory mood. The scientists we spoke to mostly are [Commentary p, 317], but past celebrations have had to tread carefully [Essay p. 324]. The Darwin-related content from this issue — and extra online-only material — can be accessed via: www.nature.com/darwin. Cover graphic: Jonathan Williams