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`Encyclopaedia of Life' planned

WASHINGTON: The world's scientists plan to compile everything they know about all of the earth's 1.8 million known species and put it on one website, open to everyone.

The effort, called the Encyclopaedia of Life, will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. Its first pages of information were shown here on Wednesday.

It is a massive effort by some of the world's leading scientific institutions and universities. The project will take about 10 years to complete. "It's an interactive zoo," said James Edwards, who will be the encyclopaedia's executive director. If the new encyclopaedia progresses as planned, it should fill about 300 million pages.

The MacArthur and Sloan foundations have given a total $12.5 million to pay for the first two and a half years of the massive effort, but it will be free and accessible to everyone.

On the Net, the Encyclopaedia of Life project is at http://www.eol.org/

AP

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