| Title | | 1 |
| Editorial | | 3 |
| Content | | 4 |
| Humour | Paul the Postdoc | 6 |
| News | "EMBO Journal editorial policy / European research policy: Vision 2020 /
Recently awarded / European paper: Reverse evolution
" | 6 |
| Opinion | "Observations of The Owl (15): Nobody’s Perfect (Darwin Year 2009)
" | 12 |
| Analysis | "Evolution today: Population geneticist and book author Steve Jones talks about explaining evolution to the public, updating Darwin, the presumed end of human evolution and about working on snails (Darwin Year 2009)
" | 14 |
| Analysis | "Species: What exactly is a species? Whereas dozens of different species concepts are still under discussion, many scientists insist that a universal definition is impossible. (Darwin Year 2009)
" | 20 |
| Humour | One fine day in the lab (11): Imaging Workshop | 23 |
| Analysis | Speciation: Diethard Tautz, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön (Germany), reviews the current status of scientific knowledge on how existing species split into new ones. (Darwin Year 2009) | 24 |
| Analysis | Evolutionary theory in Eastern Europe: What’s the status of evolutionary theory in the science and schools of Eastern Europe? Livia Puljak collected some snapshots from the Balkan states. (Darwin Year 2009) | 28 |
| Journal Club | Lausanne/Switzerland Evolution of social behaviour. (Darwin Year 2009) | 30 |
| Journal Club | Tubingen/Germany Protein evolution. (Darwin Year 2009) | 32 |
| Journal Club | Uppsala/Sweden Molecular evolution in birds. (Darwin Year 2009) | 34 |
| Biobiz | News | 36 |
| Biobiz | Interview with Anindya Mukherjee, Direvo Industrial Biotechnology (Germany). (Darwin Year 2009) | 38 |
| Biobiz | Close-up: Directed evolution in Central Europe. (Darwin Year 2009) | 40 |
| Biobiz | Overview: Random optimising of biomolecules. A small selection of companies. (Darwin Year 2009) | 43 |
| Methods | Bench philosophy (16): Ten tips for better oocyte recordings | 44 |
| Methods | Tips and tricks of the trade: Melting the way to cell colonies | 46 |
| Products | Survey: Real Time PCR Kits | 47 |
| Products | New products | 53 |
| Books | "The Beagle Letters, by Charles Darwin (edited by Frederick Burkhardt)
Plus an additional handful of new books published for Darwin Year 2009
" | 54 |
| Humour | Cartoon: Superdoc (9) | 66 |
