Naturally good

Here are some beautiful photos to put you in a good mood for the weekend ... Now I want to go for a walk through the autumn leaves that are glowing outside my window; instead I'm stuck at my desk writing an obituary about an evolutionary biologist.

But I don't mind having to study so much, because I've been inspired this morning by watching this awesome and uplifting video.

I'm not an aggressive atheist – I'm sympathetic to humanity's desire for religious faith, and appreciative of the good deeds that religious teaching inspires many people to perform – but I've always struggled to explain to people of faith just how beautiful and glorious I find the world viewed as a purely material and physical thing. The video above goes some way to explaining what I feel when I read about the inner workings of a cell, or think about population genetics and evolution, or – as in the video – when look up at the night sky.