Encyclopedia of Life

I have to admit, when I first read about this "Encyclopedia of Life" it sounded kind of kooky. But I checked out the website, and watched their little video promo. It starts with a rather elegant description of the planet's biosphere.

Constantly reconfiguring, morphing, decaying, the natural world is at once confounding, sublime, brutal, and unspeakably elegant.

That last part, about being unspeakably elegant, is what I think drives all fundamental research, and is what made me trust that the people behind this website will see it through.

As I watched the video, I thought this site will actually be really cool. This is the kind of resource that anyone with a curiosity about animals would be able to use.

That said, with the millions, of known and unknown species, it is a rather formidable project. I also wonder how it will cope with genetic realizations that, at least at the microbial level, the lines between strains and species are very smeared.

Still, I think this is a cool idea, and hope they are successful.