Strong
24-08-2009, 09:06 AM
Encyclopedia of Life to gather every species into a digital Noah's Ark.
The extraordinary collaborative effort has already chronicled 150,000 species. Today the Encyclopedia of Life receives a $12.5 million boost to achieve its ultimate goal
When the American sociobiologist E. O. Wilson was awarded the TED Prize in 2007, he was given the opportunity to make a wish. His wish was that someone would fund and create a freely accessible online database of every known species, to give scientists "the tools that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's biodiversity".
Within two months, Wilson's vision of a digital Noah's Ark won financial backing to the tune of $12.5 million from the MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and today the Encyclopedia of Life is a reality. Text, images and videos can be uploaded by anyone who's interested, and content is vetted by expert curators.
The inventory has grown more quickly than anyone expected. To date, there are pages for more than 150,000 species, with contributions from 250 specialists and 1,200 "citizen scientists".
The Article in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/aug/21/encyclopedia-life-species)
The Encyclopedia of Life (http://www.eol.org/)
While being entirely heartened by this endeavor, the cynic in me keeps butting in with the question, how many of those 150,000 are already extinct? But still, it is a site worth the bookmark.
The extraordinary collaborative effort has already chronicled 150,000 species. Today the Encyclopedia of Life receives a $12.5 million boost to achieve its ultimate goal
When the American sociobiologist E. O. Wilson was awarded the TED Prize in 2007, he was given the opportunity to make a wish. His wish was that someone would fund and create a freely accessible online database of every known species, to give scientists "the tools that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's biodiversity".
Within two months, Wilson's vision of a digital Noah's Ark won financial backing to the tune of $12.5 million from the MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and today the Encyclopedia of Life is a reality. Text, images and videos can be uploaded by anyone who's interested, and content is vetted by expert curators.
The inventory has grown more quickly than anyone expected. To date, there are pages for more than 150,000 species, with contributions from 250 specialists and 1,200 "citizen scientists".
The Article in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/aug/21/encyclopedia-life-species)
The Encyclopedia of Life (http://www.eol.org/)
While being entirely heartened by this endeavor, the cynic in me keeps butting in with the question, how many of those 150,000 are already extinct? But still, it is a site worth the bookmark.