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Earth's Species To Be Cataloged On the Web

Posted by kdawson on from the can-you-spell-noah's-ark dept.

Matt clues us in to a project to compile everything known about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open to the world. The effort is called the Encyclopedia of Life. It will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. The site was unveiled today in Washington where the massive effort was announced by some of the world's leading institutions. The project is expected to take about 10 years to complete; it starts out with committed funding for 1/4 of that."

6 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. But hasn't The Guide already said it in two words? by Lawn+Jocke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mostly Harmless

    --
    Maybe if this sig is witty or clever enough, someone will love me...
  2. But... by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if creationists in the future might later claim that the website didn't take 10 years to compile, but was created in a day...

    --
    Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
  3. Re:Isn't it already a part of Wikipedia? by Tatarize · · Score: 5, Funny

    In theory, the Wikipedia version will constantly have "Bigfoot" added over and over again whereas the other one will not.

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    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
  4. To Serve Man by pchan- · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope they don't forget to include a field describing how delicious each life-form is (and perhaps how it is best served).

    1. Re:To Serve Man by LordCrank · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hopefully they'll start with homo sapiens, I know a few people who have been dying for a new recipe

  5. At last, a self-limiting database! by ydra2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    A database that will get smaller over time instead of always growing out of it's disk space! Do your part to help by killing everything you don't recognize as a member of your family.

    -- ydra