Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist who spearheaded this project, a website cataloging all of the known species in the world will soon become available as early as February 28, 2008.
It has been attempted before and failed, but that was due to the lack of the availability of the technological setup in the past; we do not have such a dilema today.
This Book of All Species collection, or the Encyclopedia of Life as it is often referred to, will have the capability of condensing one page of information about each species know to man (right now that count is up to 1.8 million species, ranging from the blue-footed booby to the oyster mushroom.)
There will also be room for the list to grow the already 30, 000 pages to make room for the other 1.77 million species still left to be discovered.
Even though some biologist (like Daniel Brooks of the University of Toronto) have their doubts, other biologist remain hopeful that this will become a success.
The experts working on the project are streamlining the options on the website that might help scientists and nonscientists with pinpointing research on a particular species, or even different areas of the world that contain species you need to watch out for.
I think that it is an excellent tool of knowledge for anyone. This system will help to simply, and dare I say it, revolutionize the way that we gather necessary information for travel to foreign countries, among other things.
If there is a danger of any vermin in a particular location of the world, one would be able to streamline the necessary information through a personalized field guide on the website. You put in the location in which you are visiting, and out the vital knowledge comes.
What a brilliant idea. I truly hope that they are successful in their efforts to bring our world that much closer to the public.
3 comments:
We really are beginning to have the world at our fingertips due to the Internet! I love this idea. Seeing as I love to travel, I will use this site often if it stays up. I hope it does not fail like all the others you have mentioned. This site would also be good for students who do certain projects for classes like world geography. If it is organized well I do not see why this site should have any problems. One more day and I think I'll be one of the first to check it out!
I think it's a great new invention and useful tool. This really seems like a helpful new trend that could help us travel. I also think it's a positive move for scientists. It's great that we our constantly finging new discoveries and inventions that are for the better. I hope one day when I can travel the world that this will be a reliable source.
Hot! I have always loved all the nerdy science outlets at my disposal, from Mr. wizard to National Geographic, to Nova, heck even science fridays on NPR, but this sounds fantastically nerdy, but in a high tech, and potentially popular way. If Bill Nye's career is any proof that we need a push to make science more interesting, than maybe this new outlet will involve many not so nerdy people in the further discovery of our world.
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