A GOOD DAY FOR THE WORLD: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE IS BORN
TED
May 9, 2007
http://www.ted.com/Dear TEDizens,
Those of us in Monterey this year watched in awe as E O Wilson unveiled his inspiring TED Prize wish to create an Encyclopedia of Life. (If you weren't there,
you can see it here.)
In Washington DC this morning, the first big step in that dream came true. Five major scientific institutions, backed by a $50m funding commitment led by the MacArthur Foundation, announced the launch of a global effort to launch the Encyclopedia. Ed Wilson described today's announcement as a dream come true.
As Ed hinted in his speech back in March, a broad-based effort to plan the launch was already underway at the time he made his TED Prize wish. But he called on us to assist the effort, I am proud to tell you that members of the TED community played a key role in realizing what happened today.
In particular I'd like to salute the effort of Avenue A-Razorfish who in three short weeks were able to visualize a stunning design for the Encyclopedia and incorporate it in a video that is the centerpiece of the newly launched website. Please take two minutes (and it is literally two minutes) right now to watch this video. It does a spectacular job of explaining the purpose and vision behind the Encyclopedia. It is here at <
http://www.eol.org>. This work was done entirely pro bono, and is a wonderful example of the TED Prize at work. Everyone at the launch today was blown away by it.
The video includes spectacular photography, some of it contributed by TEDster Frans Lanting. And the website address itself was contributed by an individual inspired by Ed's wish. Programmer Ray Ratelis owned eol.org, a valuable web address which he freely contributed to the project.
Many more TEDsters are meeting next month to assist the project in brainstorming its architecture, technology and design. It's proving an exhilarating example of the power of collaboration.
There are already many stories up online about the Encylopedia. Here's the official announcement (see below).
Huge kudos and thanks to Ed and to Avenue A-Razorfish and to everyone else embarking on this journey.
My best,
Chris Anderson
TED Curator
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A LEAP FOR ALL LIFE:
WORLD’S LEADING SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCE CREATION OF “ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE”
Press Release
May 9, 2007
Original LinkWASHINGTON - Many of the world’s leading scientific institutions today announced the launch of the Encyclopedia of Life, an unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth. For the first time in the history of the planet, scientists, students, and citizens will have multi-media access to all known living species, even those that have just been discovered.
The Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library joined together to initiate the project, bringing together species and software experts from across the world. The Missouri Botanical Garden has become a full partner, and discussions are taking place this week with leaders of the new Atlas of Living Australia. The Encyclopedia today also announced the initial membership of its Institutional Council, which spans the globe, and whose members will play key roles in realizing this immense project. An international advisory board of distinguished individuals will also help guide the Encyclopedia.
The effort is spurred by a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $2.5 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and will ultimately serve as a global beacon for biodiversity and conservation.
“The Encyclopedia of Life will provide valuable biodiversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time,” said Dr. James Edwards, currently Executive Secretary of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility who today was officially named Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life. “Through collaboration, we all can increase our appreciation of the immense variety of life, the challenges to it, and ways to conserve biodiversity. The Encyclopedia of Life will ultimately make high-quality, well-organized information available on an unprecedented level. Even five years ago, we could not create such a resource, but advances in technology for searching, annotating, and visualizing information now permit us, indeed mandate us to build the Encyclopedia of Life.”
Over the next 10 years, the Encyclopedia of Life will create Internet pages for all 1.8 million species currently named. It will expedite the classification of the millions of species yet to be discovered and catalogued as well. The pages, housed at <http://www.eol.org>, will provide written information and, when available, photographs, video, sound, location maps, and other multimedia information on each species. Built on the scientific integrity of thousands of experts around the globe, the Encyclopedia will be a moderated wiki-style environment, freely available to all users everywhere.
“The Encyclopedia of Life will be a vital tool for scientists, researchers, and educators across the globe, providing easy access to the latest and best information on all known species,” said Jonathan F. Fanton, President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. “Technology is allowing science to grasp the immense complexity of life on this planet. Sharing what we know, we can protect Earth's biodiversity and better conserve our natural heritage.”
“For more than 250 years, scientists have catalogued life, and our traditional catalogues have become unwieldy,” said Ralph E. Gomory, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “The Encyclopedia of Life will provide the citizens of the world a ‘macroscope’ of almost unimaginable power to find and create understanding of biodiversity across the globe. It will enable us to map and discover things so numerous or vast they overwhelm our normal vision.”
Scientists began creating individual web pages for species in the 1990s. However, Internet technology needed to mature to allow fast and efficient creation of a comprehensive Encyclopedia. While specific Encyclopedia of Life efforts, including the scanning of key research publications and data, have been underway since January 2006, work has accelerated due to the support provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the recent discussion of the Encyclopedia of Life by renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson at the March 2007 Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference.
One of the world’s foremost scientists and environmentalists, Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, “wished” for the establishment of the Encyclopedia of Life during his TED Conference address. Noting that “our knowledge of biodiversity is so incomplete that we are at risk of losing a great deal of it before it is ever discovered,” Wilson called for a contemporary, dynamic portrait of the living Earth.
“I wish that we will work together to help create the key tool that we need to inspire preservation of Earth’s biodiversity: the Encyclopedia of Life,” Wilson said at TED. “What excites me is that since I first put forward this idea, science has advanced, technology has moved forward. Today, the practicalities of making this encyclopedia real are within reach as never before.”
Ultimately, the Encyclopedia of Life will provide users the opportunity to personalize the learning experience through its “my eol” feature. The site can be made available in all major languages and will connect scientific communities concerned with ants to apples to zebras. As part of its work, the Encyclopedia of Life will collaborate and partner with a wide range of organizations, individuals, and experts to help strengthen the Encyclopedia and its impact on communities throughout the world.
“The solidarity of the U.S. and global communities for the Encyclopedia of Life is tremendously exciting and lifts my confidence that this vast, romantic global effort will succeed,” Edwards said. “We are also encouraged by the declaration in March 2007 by the environment ministers of the G8 nations to foster a global species information system.”
While initial work will emphasize species of animals, plants, and fungi, the design can be extended to encompass microbial life.
To provide depth behind the portal page for each species, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), a consortium that holds most of the relevant scientific literature, will scan and digitize tens of millions of pages of the scientific literature that will offer open access to detailed knowledge. In fact, the BHL now has scanning centers operating in London, Boston, and Washington DC, and has scanned the first 1.25 million pages for the Encyclopedia.
“I dream that in a few years wherever a reference to a species occurs on the Internet, there will be a hyperlink to its page in the Encyclopedia of Life,” concluded Edwards.