Slashdot Mirror
Finding Every Species
Microsofts slave writes "A hugely ambitious project to find and name every species on Earth within the next 25 years has been launched by scientists. The internet and the development of DNA sequencing technology make the goal achievable, they say."
put a patent on every single one for purposes of commercial exploitation
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Good freakin' luck..
:P
As the pesimist I am, I say this is impossible. What about all the stuff that is so deep in the sea we can't even get to?
I think we'd have better luck finding life on Mars.
R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
...is to find and sample one of each of these tasty species within 20 years.
List of species known gets larger each year...
List of species that aren't extinct gets smaller each year...
The two numbers will eventually meet.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
That extremely rare species of plant that's in the rainforest in Brazil with a population of 5? And what about the extremely rare species of insect that lives on and eats those plants that has a population of 2?
And start out by figuring out which species CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal are.
Esse quam vederi.
When will they find bigfoot?
"Scientist X declares 'we have identified EVERY living species on the face of the planet. Prove us wrong!'"
Is that even theoretically possible? Since new species are always evolving wouldn't there always be new species to name?
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Not going to happen. They would first have to come up with an adequate universal definition of a species, and they haven't done that in the last 150 years (Darwin addressed this issue).
Thats one more book that nobody will read.
People for the Eating of Tasty Animals that is.
So they finally got too bored with trying to cure cancer?
I guess it's a good thing they document all the different animal species before they are all dead, or become some part of the McDonalds "hamburger" (TM)
Also this documentation will help to aide in my hunting them all down and mounting them on my wall
Gotta catch em all!
This shoudl be named the Adam project after teh acount of genisis. Although. elts face it, he woulda been kciked out of eden a lot faster if he internet access. God frowns on pr0n :)
In Soviet Russia you dant have to put up with these crappy jokes
This will be a monumental undertaking. The current rate of discovery is a mere 10,000 a year. With an estimated 100 milion species, it'd take, well, forever.
.1% of all estimated species of microorganisms out there. Finding, isolating, and cataloging all of the microorganisms will take us much longer than animals simply because they're so tiny. This probably will take much longer than 25 years.
Animals won't be so bad. We figure we have a good knowledge of 10-15% of the animal species out there. It's only so long before we have them all. 25 years is a pretty long time for that.
However, we only have catalogued something like
Hell, even if we had them all, we'd never know what makes these species special and significant. The most important parts of species discovery could be lost in the mad rush.
Not to mention:
"Instead of the time-consuming present system of comparing new discoveries with museum species, there will be a worldwide web-based database."
The issues of hacking/cracking, stability, reliability, and verification all boggle the mind. There's no way we'd be able to be sure.
I think this guy is just trying to get publicity behind the idea that we should speed things up. Like a rallying war cry for the science nerd community.
Evolution will someday cause those species to eventually become another species. Then what? We'll have to start the project all over again.
Beep. Boop. Beep. You have questions. I have answers and your home address.
We can't even get to where most species *are* yet.
And while I agree that taxonomy is an important part of biological science, cataloging life isn't the *point* of taxonomy. It might be rather more to the point to *preserve* these species, or at least their DNA (male and female, and put them, into the ark. Riiiiight)
Honestly, I *do* understand what they're trying to do here, but it has an odd, and rather pathetic, feeling of pointlessness to it.
KFG
Why don't they use this opportunity to create a large searchable database of every species while they are at it.
They could include information such as name, ncientific name (the latin? stuff), physical Description, a few photographs of male and female specimins, eating preferences, defense mechanisms, known locations of presence, and other various notes.
When it comes to the carnavores, you could make entries in their diet link to the victims' records.
Then just make it searchable. Filterable by geographical area, species, keywords, etc. Very powerful. Then all you need is to make it publically available. Read-only of course.
Firstly its going to be close to impossible to actually succeed in doing this. Never mind that new species are discovered very frequently (weekly? monthly?), the real question is how could someone say that with out a doubt, that every species has been accounted for?
What happens when species evolve enough to be considered a new strain of species? What happens when it is announced that "Every species has been identified" and then a new one comes along? Something like that will only serve the public perception that 'those scientists don't know everything: the earth really is flat! Baaaah Baaaah'.
What happens when a species becomes extinct? Do you erase it from the record? Just put a big 'red cross' next to it? Surely these people attempting this, and the people funding such a project could find something better to spend their resources on. Maybe actually preventing the extinction, not just recording its occurance.
What do you think?
I should start by saying that I think this is a noble project. The shadow that humanity is casting across the earth threatens to leave all other species in oblivion, except for those we have genetically engineered or deemed economically beneficial.
A major technical problem, however, is trying to define the limits that constitute a species. This is sometimes tricky with animals, and in some families of plants, it is practically impossible. (If I remember my bio 101 correctly from all those years ago). The project sounds similar to what Lineus and the other naturalists were trying to do just before Darwin and the evolutionists bollixed everything up.
I only hope we leave enough other species around so that when we go, the cockroaches inherit a viable planet. And in case they are listening, "we salute you, our insect overlords". Or perhaps an inanimate carbon rod will save us all.
Even heroes have the right to dream
"Professor David Hillis, of the University of Texas, US, says about 1.7 million species have been described so far, although estimates of the total number range from 10 million to 100 million. "
10 million to 100 million is a big gap.
Acaila
Growing Old is Inevitable; Growing Up is Optional.
Um, 1.
I have trouble with passwords among other things.
At a national meeting I attendent before Christmas we learned that the All Species Foundation is for all intents and purposes defunct, with only a small governing board still existing (this from a board member). The whole project depended on philanthropy from Dot Com millionaires (the effort led in part by Kevin Kelly (sp?)), when the boom when down the tube so did the dream. There are still efforts to name all species and many posters here will mention the problems associated with this. Needless to say it won't happen in 22 years.
P.S. this is a dupe of an earlier slashdot article, on which I ranted on the difficulty of the whole deal...
(Goes back to describing species...)
Evolution still exists. There are thousands of new species evolving every years, mostly single-celled organisms, but some larger ones.
The only way of naming every species would be to create a standard naming convention like the IUPAC system for chemicals, but this isn't even close to what the article is about
Jason
ProfQuotes
I can't wait for the Bigfoot throw rug!!!
They hibernate by day, and at night engage in peculiar mating rituals involving hooting at moving images made by their god.
dammit... yesterday I offended the fantasy fans... tonight I offend the Everquesties... I must hate myself...
With some unicelluar organisms, it would be hard to say when a new speices has been created. How do you know when two groups are genetically different enough to be seperate species?
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Hmmmm I suppose one of the major problems in this undertaking to attempting to solve "grey areas", IE what is a different species and what it not.
A case in point is the Vancouver Island Marmot. This highly endangered animal is concidered a seperate species than the regular rocky mountain marmot. Even though the only major difference between the two is that the Vancouver island marmot has a patch on it's nose.
Compare this to the difference in animals of the same species. A dalmation and a bulldog are concidered to be the same species of animal, even though they are vastly different in apperence and behavior.
There are just examples of the thousands of grey areas the exist between species. So one must ask, how specific are they getting, what in these scientists eyes is a seperate species and what is simply a different race.
By setting the standard for what is a species high, the task of discovering every species becomes much easier than if the bar was set lower.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
Even the unknown creatures that may live in Lake Vostok? Last I heard it was sorta hard to reach :)
All this will provide is a snapshot of the Earth's diverse species at a certain time, if successful.
How do they propose to go into the deep reaches of the Amazon basin or into northern Canada/Siberia ?
What about the minor localized species that exist now, but will be extinct in 20 years ? How do they plan to keep track of E V E R Y species and their current status ?
I see this as an idealistic endavour but not feasible.
It would be better to document the species that have more or less a direct impact on human living conditions and track them in detail. But I suppose that's already been done to a good extent.
The various surname projects could be sold the right to name a species after their family as a kind of tribal totem. The ecological range of every species occupying a given area could then contribute to the purchase of that land area and stock holdings by various surname groups could control the land area. Areas with naturally higher biodiversity would have a lot more surname sales and therefore more tribal totems resident. This would be a good way to get people to identify their familial bloodlines with various species that would statistically favor preservation of high-biodiversity areas.
At the time few of the surname projects that now exist on the internet were had come into existence. I think there is a lot more support for this sort of genealogical identity these days and totems may be a real commodity to sell in preservation of biodiversity.
Seastead this.
I don't think the difficulty is in analyzing DNA or any of that. They need to travel to remote locations to find the samples. They also need to rexamine locations and scour them for things they missed. Orchids, Insects, Grases are found all the time.
Previouly thought to be uninhabitble areas are found to hold life every 5 years or so and thought to be extinct animals are found alive about ever3 years, palnts and animals. Include Mutation to generate new species.
Now Add bacterial species and Virus(Not technically alive, I disagree)
Good Luck...Realse the Info for medicianl use and make the owner the UN as well as every nation on earth.
BTW can i patent myself, more specifically my dna? So that if it is found that i carry some weird mutated form of a gene that cures cancer or something similar, i will make profit off the use of such a gene to help other people.
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
We'll leave a load of copies floating in orbit around the planet before we nuke each other out of existence.
When the next dominant species emerges from the sludge and reaches a stage where spaceflight is possible then they can just pick one up.
Then all the archaologists in the new species can down tools and start working on more forward looking matters, such as working out new ways to kill each other en-mass.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
They have to have a name... ...so we can put them on the Menu.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
how do you classify the differences between asexual species?
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
They're all duplicates
Taxonomists will be renaming and reclassifying species at a greater rate than anyone can discover and name them.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
If you look at actual biological descriptions of new species these days, there is endless spagetti of Family, sub-family, sub-sub-family, Genera, sub-genera. They really have to bend the classificatory scheme to make sense out of every creature they run across these days.
So, likely no one will be able to agree if/when the task is finished (if it will ever be)..
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
As I post this, 52 out of 65 comments are above 0! That's almost 70%! Clearly an unacceptable situation. So, here I am, doing my part to deprove the S:N, taking one for the team.
3
Don't forget to put "humans" and "niggers" as different species.
I'm a bit worried about this idea. I thought the search was over the day they discovered Spam.
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
And start out by figuring out which species CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal are.
Trolls?
What else could have thought of making slashdot anyway?
... there are more non-tasty specieses than tasty ones. Just like the every-flavor beans.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
As each year there exist less and less species.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
I think it will be interesting to see the types of creatures that we find in the deepest depths of the ocean.. Maybe we might even get some pictures of the elusive Giant Squid!
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
You might want to read this.
They are doing PCR on single cells.
Free book: Science Toys You Can Make
This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's [cmu.edu] School of Computer Science [cmu.edu]. It has been a remarkable experience that I would lik e to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.
Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in tw o days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tom orrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.
Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to f ind that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increm ent the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.
Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configu re their systems?
Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have i t, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly be en developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.
Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of fi les titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have liv es? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Window s!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each tout ing an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, Re dHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have shower ed since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working s o I can do my assignments.
Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling m y that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered o n my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I do n't want to lose my uptime."
Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am no t even going to ask.
Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...
Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ3 3R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux afte r discovering about 17 rootkits.
Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stres s has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.
Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, so meone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very susp icious of these guys.
Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reins tall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.
Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon ap peared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stress ed lately.
Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some oth er CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myse lf. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.
Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so de pressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?
Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll b e getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?
Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so ba d.
Why bother.
This is the All Species Foundation, Kevin Kelly's latest brainchild.
Kevin Kelly basically figured out how to give away a billion dollars.
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
The All Species Foundation website has a nice FAQ which answered some of the obvious questions which popped into my mind, like "How do you know when you're done?".
"I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fucking book." -- Sean in "Good Will Hunting"
to qualify as a new species.....I asked my Ecology teacher who was also a genetics researcher in the summer, and he said it depends....humans are 2% away from chimps, but another 2 groups that are close on the tree could only be a fraction of a percent of more than 5%.
so is their any one hear who could confirm or deny this?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Seems that with our current rate of extinction it should be pretty easy. Hell, there may be no work to do; maybe all the ones tha we don't know about will be dead in 25 years anyway.
MDC
Do you have ESP?
A hugely ambitious project to find and name every species on Earth within the next 25 years has been launched by scientists.
Haven't they been doing that for the last couple of hundred years? What makes them think the can do it in 25 when a few hundred years of science has just barely scrapped the surface.
I could help them out, seeing as my room probably contains 300 or more here-to-unknown (or recently evolved) species alone (and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only slashdotter in this situation.
One way this group might go about collecting samples from every species (particulary from the ocean, where the greatest variety resides) is to run a sort of filter through the water/atmosphere at various depths, catching all manner of critters. Then, dump all the animals into some sort of machine that grinds them up processes them to collect DNA information which could be sorted into a large database.
The major drawback is that we might not know what sort of creature a specific entry represents or even what it looks like... but at least we could catagorize a lot of things in a short amount of time.
I'm not sure the technology exists to analyze so much organic material, but that could be something to work for.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Wow, I'm glad scientists have finally found a way around that pesky problem of not being able to prove negatives.
Now we can finally prove that:
a) There does not exist a species that we haven't found.
b) God does not exist.
These scientists seem to be morons if the slashdot headline is accurate (that'll be the day). An ambitious undertaking would have been to catalog 10x as many species next year as most years, and to continue doing so until we think we have them all. An impossible undertaking is to show that we haven't missed any in the process.
Justin Dubs
So we can remember what we USED to have? At the rate humans are taking over, eventually there may be only 1 species. Not to mention, we seem to find plenty of ways to kill each other as well.
There are so many varieties and they evolve so quickly, that it would be impossible to catalog all of them because there are constantly new species being made. Besides, the distinction between divergent strains of a species and different but related species is completely arbitrary on that scale, because they don't have sexual reproduction. In mammals, the ability to produce fertile offspring generally draws the boundaries between species.
Repeal the DMCA!
Most of the news comes from the same sources.
"A wide variety of sources is used in the preparation of material - including BBC News, BBC World Service and a large number of internationally-recognised news agencies. They include the Press Association, Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse."
Check CNN and you might find some similar names.
I fail to see where this is a practical endeavor.
Hey, no problem, just have a peek inside my fridge, all sorts of new and exotic life forms growing in there.
I'd be cautious about doing the DNA testing though - I don't know if your gear will freak out at a triple helix strand.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
The article states:
"DNA information can be quickly submitted and examined to see whether it is related to known organisms, or is from a genuinely new species."
There is a degree of subjectivity in the informatics it seems. For a species to be unique it cannot be able to reproduce with any other species (thereby creating reproductively capable offspring). Anyone want to wager the accuracy of that code?
Could a worm from Switzerland create viable offspring with a worm from Kansas? Give us your "opinion" oh magical and mighty bioinformatics brain!
Don't beleive me? Check this out.
Scientists are still finding new species of ants frequently. The last number was 11,006 according to Antbase.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I've known this site since at least half a year ago.
And we are simplifying the problem by killing off most species first--then we don't have to to bother identifying and cataloging them.
Life for Adam in the Garden of Eden was not an idle pursuit of berries and time with Eve. Adam was told to work the garden and care for it. The first task (see verse 19) though was to name the animals. Interestingly, modern-day scientists are now completing an extension of humankind's first job.
Genesis 2 (see verse 19).They should start asking the indiginous people of the various places they go to about the animals they encounter, especially if they are nomadic. The folklore, myths, traditions, stories, etc. often serve purposes beyond that of creating a basis for religion. Many of them have been created to help them survive the environment they live in. Not only that, but they also seem to allow to live within these environments without destroying them. This is something anthropologists have known for some time now. Western biologists often have the bad habit of dismissing these things, particularly if they are tribal, under the misconceived notion that they are "primitive" and could not possibly understand the plants and animals around them, when in fact it's their vast amounts of knowledge of the plants and animals around them that allows them to survive.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I've been searching for nearly 6 years and I can't even find all my socks!
Anyway, if they want to try they can start by checking the unidentified species growing under my bathroom sink. I tried killing it a few times but, uhhh... I've learned that it is a very very bad idea to make it angry.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Cheers,
Ian
There is no satisfactory definition of species which covers every type of organism.
Shame on the BBC for giving credence to this bilge.
What does finding species of animals have to do with the use of internet? You sure won't find any live species of animals on teh internet? And anyway, 25 years is far too short considering no one has ever been toteh centre fo teh earth and proven that no life exists there. And they think that in 25 years time, they will be construct technology that allows them to travel through the crust AND the mantle into the core to check whats there. (And be able to find a living species of course.)
I have always believed that human beings real purpose in the eco-system was to serve as planet earths reproductive system. We transport the earths eco-system to other planets. Why do you think people from all ages have been fascinated with the stars and exploring. This attempt to catalog every living thing on the earth seems like a step in that direction.
What about trying to save some of this species...
Even if we know how to create a species from a genome sequence it would not live long without it's specific environment (in most cases). So all this talk about conservation by collecting genome sequences is bullshit.
I have a hard time believing that slashdotters would be offended by anything. Once you have been tricked into seeing our friend goatse, everything else looks like a super model.
ie. Once you have seen goatse, you are all offended out.
(this was the bit they really decided to grit their teeth over) in alphabetical order. When people protested, as they sometimes did, that the plan was not only misguided, but actually impossible because of the number of species emerging or going extinct all the time, they would merely fix them with a steely look and say, "Well, we've got funding, haven't we?"
It would take them 25 years to study all the mysteries growing in my kitchen - the fridge bottom alone is a frightful sight! And the multicoloured colonies on my shower curtain! Even I don't dare to approach the slime under the dishwasher without serious protection, it has got rather aggressive of late. And this is ignoring all the things too small and unsmelly that I haven't even noticed their presence. Who knows what lurks under the bed...
Life for Adam in the Garden of Eden was not an idle pursuit of berries and time with Eve. Adam was told to work the garden and care for it. The first task (see verse 19) though was to name the animals. Interestingly, modern-day scientists are now completing an extension of humankind's first job.
Aha, now we see proof that the bible was written by a geek. Otherwise, REPRODUCTION would've been mankind's first job, to be interrupted only for feeding.
Like what I said? You might like my music
1. Man.
Maybe now we'll finally figure out the deal with that pesky trouser snake.
This task will be a lot more possible as years pass. Why?
According to this, in 100 years, there will be about half as many species on earth as there are now. We're actually in the middle of the biggest extinction epidemic since the dinosaurs died out.
Scratch that - according to this other site, this is actually the fastest mass extinction in earth's history. The fact that most people don't know about this is made even more strange by the fact that this extinction epidemic is man-made.
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
How can they prove that they got all of them? I suppose they could destroy the world.
Hit dice,
Encounter Frequency,
Alignment and
Armour Class too
We can't protect things we don't know about.
Who cares? Things on this planet went extinct long before people came along, and will continue to long after we are done with the place. "That's nature's way" as the crocodile hunter puts it.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
The number of undocumented species is truly gargantuan, but within 25 years enough of them ought to have gone extinct that it shouldn't be so hard to find and name them all. Most of them are lower life forms anyway.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You might want to check the NCBI taxonomy browser.
There you have at least a searchable database with the species names, their scientific names and links to sequences or other information.
It lacks the photos, the diet, their location and other 'higher level' stuff though.
Still a worthy goal though, and any even remotely credible attempt would most likely assist with all sorts of research.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
what about nessie?
Well if species keep disappearing at a high rate, and researchers keep discovering new ones at a moderately slow rate - then eventually these two should converge at some point.
So it follows that we should kill off more species to help these scientists in their noble task. ( amazing what absurd things can be done with pure logic )
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
The toughest thing about naming every speices will be finding every species to test and name. Here's my proposal for a brute force method for finding every species: create every possible DNA combination in a lab, inject the DNA into a plant seed or an animal egg and see if it grows into something. If it grows, name it. If it doesn't grow, rule it out as a species.
Give serendipity a chance.
Linnean nomenclature is what historians might call dog-latin, that is, a corrupt dialect or pidgin at least partially derived from latin roots. In many cases names are pseudo-latinized names of the discoverer's heroes, or relatives, or similar. Gary Larsen has a bird louse named after him, for example.
It's considered poor taste to name a species after yourself, and respectable scientists don't do it. But there has been a noticeable breakdown in the culture of science in the last decade or so, so I think you can expect to see more species named after their discoverers, and probably sponsoring corporations, too.
What's the big deal? Adam did this in like... a day or something!
Add to that the fact that biological ecosystems are dynamic systems where "species" appear and disappear, usually without human intervention, mind you, as part of its natural existence and process. This makes the idea of creating a encyclopedic master reference of species even more dubious because it is an already vague and definitely moving target.
It would be nice to track species if a definition could actually be defined in terms of something repeatably measureable (probably in terms of genotypic distances or something) to understand the dynamic systems they are part of, but such a project will probably be used for more cynical purposes.
JGski
For example, the Florida Panther used to be considered a separate species due to distinct phenotype and geographic isolation. Once the species was down to a single known individual, other panther species were introduced to the area as breeding partners (in an attempt to salvage as much of the genotype as possible).
To make matters even more confusing, mules are occasionally fertile; although they are sterile in general, individual exceptions have been reported to occur.
I suspect you know all this and merely mistyped, but I'm pointing it out for those who don't.
They are planning to clone each one and send the copies to the nearest planetary colony. I want an owl replica please.
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So isn't it a bit weird that only now someone actually got around to doing it?
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...thanks to the current mass extinction caused by the human population explosion. In 25 years, there will be far fewer species to count (and more people to count them).
isn't this exactly what scientists have been working on for the last hundreads (or hundread) years? trying to find all species?
That's okay. Within 25 years, so many countries will have nuculer (read George Bush) weapons, or WMD as we all know them today. Anything that scientists cannot name, they will either blow it up or not let anyone see the DNA sequencing that it takes to create the species. Either way, ***poof*** never exists.
(every notice how if you don't know much about something a news story seems to make sense, but if you do know something about the topic what appears in the news often has a major disconnect with reality? A good example would be any news story about DNS)
What is it they're actually doing? It doesn't sound to me like they're really going to "find and name every species" it sounds more like they're going to isolate DNA from all current species.
To wit: are they going to comb every square centimeter of darkest Africa? The sea bottom? How will they know when they're done?
Bill Eschemeyer at the California Academy of Sciences has already cataloged and put online all living and extinct fish species. So that part is done. But it took 10 years (and an NSF grant) just to do that, and all he did was identify all known species with references to their descriptions. Mammels aint too hard.
Insects are going to kill them. While we've more than scratched the surface, there's several lifetimes of work to find the rest. Who is going to pay for this? Will there be a team of scientists looking through the river and forest in my backyard to make sure they havn't missed one?
Worse, there's no consensus on "what is a species" or "what is a subspecies"
If they really have a plan to "find and name" all extant living species them I'm impessed as all getout.
Can I make a request they start with West African Killifish, from say, Cameroon and Ghana.
ISAGN.
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