Did you know next year will be the Year of Science? Sounds very grand. Perhaps it will be the year that an important but nonsensational story about science makes the front page of USA Today or the year that scientists aren’t portrayed as evil-doers or crazy nerds in the movies…mmm, maybe not. Still, it’ll be a big year, 2009. The 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. It’ll also be the International Year of Astronomy, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the first time Galileo looked to the skies using a telescope.

The organization behind Year of Science is the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science, a group of universities, science museums, societies and educators getting together to promote better, well, public understanding of science.

Members are organized around regional hubs too and yes, there is one for Cambridge. They are hosting an event next month at the WGBH studios in Somerville. For more info on this hub, email Natalie Kuldell, an MIT instructor in biological engineering, at nkuldell at mit dot edu (from the OpenWetWare blog)