An initiative to create a multi-media Encyclopedia of every living species was announced today. Right now that means 1.8 million animals, plants, and other forms of life. But the number of living species grows daily, for example we currently know of 4-5 thousand different species of Beetles but it is suspected that there could be up to a million more out there that we don't know about. Needless to say, nothing like this has ever been done before and it will take a massive global effort to even come close to achieving the reality. Dr. James Edwards who today was officially named Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life backs me up on my last statement, “[Amber is right,] through collaboration, we all can increase our appreciation of the immense variety of life, the challenges to it, and ways to conserve biodiversity. The Encyclopedia of Life will ultimately make high-quality, well-organized information available on an unprecedented level. Even five years ago, we could not create such a resource, but advances in technology for searching, annotating, and visualizing information now permit us, indeed mandate us to build the Encyclopedia of Life.” You can watch a video about the project at their official webpage.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Encyclopedia of Life
An initiative to create a multi-media Encyclopedia of every living species was announced today. Right now that means 1.8 million animals, plants, and other forms of life. But the number of living species grows daily, for example we currently know of 4-5 thousand different species of Beetles but it is suspected that there could be up to a million more out there that we don't know about. Needless to say, nothing like this has ever been done before and it will take a massive global effort to even come close to achieving the reality. Dr. James Edwards who today was officially named Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life backs me up on my last statement, “[Amber is right,] through collaboration, we all can increase our appreciation of the immense variety of life, the challenges to it, and ways to conserve biodiversity. The Encyclopedia of Life will ultimately make high-quality, well-organized information available on an unprecedented level. Even five years ago, we could not create such a resource, but advances in technology for searching, annotating, and visualizing information now permit us, indeed mandate us to build the Encyclopedia of Life.” You can watch a video about the project at their official webpage.
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9 comments:
Oh man. I'll never get any work done once they put this thing on the internets.
that is the best blog picture ever.
now i will know what i can cook and eat!
it truly is the best blog picture ever, i couldn't have been more proud of myself upon its discovery.
wow, that sounds really cool. Do they have any idea how long until it's created?
its sweet of Dr. Edwards to give you such support.he must be a great guy.
Well he's an old friends of mine and when I suggested the idea of creating EOL he really took it to heart, so it only makes sense that he would give me props.
Sounds like more hippy stuff to me.
Seriously, I didn't give this science stuff a fair shake. I'm starting to think there might be something to it.
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