Identifying World's Species With Genetic Bar Codes

Fokker writes "Reuters reports that scientists from around the world launched a project on thursday to genetically identify species using bar codes. By taking a snippet of DNA from all the known species on Earth and linking them to photographs, descriptions and scientific information, the researchers plan to build the largest database of its kind."

Comments

what about the zebras?

[Suburbanpride]

Wont this hurt the self esteem of the animals that already have barcodes?

Why? For Check out lines?

[DanThe1Man]

"Could I get a price check on a large brown marsupial?"

Pet store efficiency

[Orgadam]

Does this mean the pet stores of the future will allow a cashier to swipe an animal across an electric eye, greatly increasing the efficiency and speed with which people can buy large quantities of animals? Such a system could greatly help out my habit of buying as many mice as I can! Although, it becomes a problem when geneticists demand that barcodes be placed on individual fruit flies so that they, too, can be bought quickly and efficiently.

Yeah, I know the barcodes won't be put on the animals... but maybe after a trial run, customers will demand it!