I was asked in e-mail to pass along news of this contest, which some Daylight Atheism readers may be interested in.

Quark Expeditions is sponsoring a "Blog Your Way to Antarctica" contest. Anyone can submit a 300-word essay explaining why they should be the one to join a voyage to Antarctica scheduled for February 2010, and the entrant who gets the most votes will become the trip's official blogger and will post daily updates about their experience.

Here's the list of current entrants. (There are a lot of them; I suggest sorting by popularity.) A valid e-mail address is required to register, and you can then vote for your favorite candidate (or possibly your least favorite, depending on how you view the idea of an Antarctic voyage). You can also enter the contest yourself, although judging by the current top vote-getters, there's some stiff competition. The deadline for voting is noon on September 30.

Full disclosure: I was asked to pass this along by Devorah Bennu, a.k.a. GrrlScientist, who's currently the second highest vote-getter in the contest. As there's more than one person in the rankings whom I know, I'm not going to make an endorsement myself. But I do encourage you to read the various entrance essays and judge for yourself who's the most qualified. May the best candidate win!