Updated 22 September, 2010.

There is a #ukscitweetup-slash-Karen’s-leaving-do in the works; please visit Doodle for the most up-to-date information on date, time and location.

Friends, colleagues, tweeps and blogpeeps, the murmurings are true:  at the end of September, after eight amazing years, I am leaving the Natural History Museum — and the UK — and moving back to the United States, to Bar Harbor, Maine, on the doorstep of Acadia National Park.

The first couple of months after the move are exciting ones: I’ll be back in London in mid-October to speak at TAM London, then I’m off to Galapagos with the Wellcome Trust and the winners of their Survival Rivals competition, then it’s to Florida for the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery, which happens to be both the final launch of Discovery and also Beagle Project collaborator astronaut Michael Barratt‘s ride back to the International Space Station. Thanks to Mike, I was honored… okay, utterly beside myself… to receive a special ‘friends and family’ invitation to the launch, but THEN (*breathes*) I was also invited to the NASA Tweetup (decisions decisions) and have decided, with Mike’s expert advice, to attend the Tweetup.

Then it’s finally back to Maine, where I am hoping to establish a new research-based education project in Acadia National Park (more on that as it unfolds). I’ll also be continuing my work with The HMS Beagle Project (much needed new website coming soon!).

I plan to keep tweeting, blogging, enthusing about evolution, genetics, biodiversity and human spaceflight, albeit with even more muddled Anglo-American spellings than usual, and I’m sure I’ll be sharing lots of pictures of Bar Harbor and Acadia as B and I make our new home there.

As always, the best place to keep up-to-date on my wherabouts, projects, musings and skewerings, is twitter.

Oh, and what’s ‘this sceptr’d isle’, you ask?

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,…

The Tragedy of King Richard II, Act 2 Scene 1
William Shakespeare