MSNBC/Newsweek looks at The Encyclopedia of Life
Now the Encyclopedia of Life will endeavor to document online every one of the world’s 1.8 million named species—each getting its own dedicated Web page. “This is one of those great things that will help everyone,” says Cristián Samper, the acting secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. “It’s one of those fun projects for humanity.”Read the rest.A well-endowed one at that. The Encyclopedia of Life—a collaboration of the Smithsonian, Harvard University, Chicago’s Field Museum, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Missouri Botantical Garden—has already received $12.5 million in grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and has been promised more than an additional $10 million. And like Wikipedia, the centralized database of every known living thing will be free and open source when it goes live early next year (in the meantime, the EOL site, which launched this week, comprises four sample pages and an inspirational video).
Samper, a biologist by training and the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History since 2003, spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about his vision for the Encyclopedia of Life.
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