TALK about a massive undertaking.
A free website will catalogue the planet’s 1.8 million known living creatures, allowing scientists from all over the world to collaborate online.
Here’s an excerpt from the Agence France-Presse article:
The site “will provide valuable biodiversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time,” said James Edwards, a biologist picked to head the project. “Through collaboration, we all can increase our appreciation of the immense variety of life, the challenges to it, and ways to conserve biodiversity,” he said.
Edwards told Agence France-Presse he hopes the Encyclopedia of Life will have the same catalytic effect the Human Genome Project has had on biology.
“Making the information about the genetic sequences of organisms public has . . . revolutionized the way we do molecular biology and genetics,” he said.

May 9th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
[...] Inside Science: Scientists join hands for Encyclopedia of Life [...]
May 13th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
This is a good news for all Earthlings and for humanity in general. Making a digital database of all living things here on Earth is a very important undertaking that should have been done years ago when the internet first flew across the globe. But though late as it is, every one concerned with the general welfare of the planet must enlist and join hands with other enlightened fellows in researching the world’s living entities in one single mammoth project.
Soon, all computer experts must collaborate in constructing and developing an artificicial intelligence that would Earth’s living, conscious mind.
This planet overmind would be a voice to be heard by everybody digitally connected to the web.
May 17th, 2007 at 5:34 am
All in fine if indeed it is for science and humanity. Methinks however that this might be an agenda of the New World Order towards global control. A systemic mind control has been in effect for years in the areas of religion, education, banking, etc.