A sampling of events at the Smithsonian during Asian Pacific America Heritage Month 2009.

At this transitional moment—as digital technology is altering the form, content, and transmission of camera imagery— "click! photography changes everything" (www.click.si.edu), a program by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the history, practice, and power of photography. In these episodes, Smithsonian curators, researchers, and historians talk about how photography influences their work.

"click!" invites experts from a spectrum of professional worlds—innovators, image makers, writers, and public figures—to survey the ways photography has influenced the history, progress, and practice of each of their fields of interest. Join the conversation - http://www.click.si.edu/contribute.aspx.

An important debate has erupted in the scientific community concerning the magnitude of future species extinctions in the tropics. This debate was ignited by an in-depth analysis of expected human-population and forest-cover trends (S. J. Wright & H. Muller-Landau. 2006. Biotropica) and has generated great interest in the fate of tropical biodiversity (reviewed in W. F. Laurance. 2007. Trends in Ecology & Evolution). The debate centers around two different theories: Wright’s position is based in part on United Nations figures that urbanism and lower population growth will allow abandoned areas to recover and tropical species to be spared versus Laurance’s claims that secondary and degraded forests will sustain only a fraction of tropical biodiversity and that industrial agriculture, logging, mining, and economic globalization, rather than changing rural and urban populations, are becoming the dominant drivers of tropical deforestation.