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Science

Finding Every Species 278

Posted by michael from the top-of-the-food-chain dept.
Microsofts slave writes "A hugely ambitious project to find and name every species on Earth within the next 25 years has been launched by scientists. The internet and the development of DNA sequencing technology make the goal achievable, they say."
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Finding Every Species More

Finding Every Species

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  • And Then (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:15AM (#5070407) Journal
    put a patent on every single one for purposes of commercial exploitation

    • Re:And Then (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not a bad idea. But would dissecting them be a violation of the DMCA then? Reverse engineering and all...
    • The Human Genome Project was going to take the combined resources of a large number of research institutions around the world, several hundred million dollars, and 10-15 years to sequence the human genome.

      A lone American startup, Celera, took 2-3 years to single-handedly complete the project.

      Is it possible that governmental projects are not the end-all of research?
      • Is it possible that governmental projects are not the end-all of research?

        I think it's possible that somebody wildly overestimated the scope of the project. Or wildly underestimated the resources that could be applied to it. Or both.

        But of course you're right. As I understand it, the vast majority of pure research is being funded by private companies now. So even if that research is being done at universities-- which it is, largely-- it's being paid for with corporate dollars. Which, some people's opinions to the contrary, is not inherently a bad thing.

        • Re:And Then (Score:5, Insightful)

          by divide overflow ( 599608 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:56AM (#5070715)

          I think it's possible that somebody wildly overestimated the scope of the project. Or wildly underestimated the resources that could be applied to it. Or both.

          Many different factors caused the project to take less time than initially planned, not the least of which was clever algorythmic techniques to speed up the decoding process. All of them combined led to a quicker result.

          As I understand it, the vast majority of pure research is being funded by private companies now. So even if that research is being done at universities-- which it is, largely-- it's being paid for with corporate dollars. Which, some people's opinions to the contrary, is not inherently a bad thing.

          I believe you meant "basic" research rather than "pure" research. Basic research (as opposed to "applied" research) is "experimental and theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge without a specific application in view". There has been a general decline in spending on basic research by corporations in recent years due to the high cost and uncertainty of return on the investment, leading to the shift of basic research to universities. This has had good and bad effects on universities, who have benefited from the funds but have also found increasing limitations and restrictions placed upon them by their corporate sponsors. For example, there have been well documented reports of drug companies putting restrictions in grant contracts to public researchers preventing them from telling the public of any hazardous effects of their drugs, even when those same drugs are in current use by the public.

          So their is no black or white answer to which is better, public or private research. Perhaps it is good to have both, just as it is good to have a multiplicity of competitors in a market economy. It may just help to keep everyone honest.

      • Re:And Then (Score:3, Insightful)

        by alext ( 29323 )
        Hardly single handedly - all their sequence data was from public research.

        And they didn't win - the public effort was described in Nature magazine, and the Celera one in Science, both on the week of 12th Feb 2001.

        However, Celera's attempt to violate the international Bermuda agreement of 1996 and turn our own genes into proprietary information did act as a spur to the public effort. Thank goodness they were able to respond.
    • Do you realize how long it would take to file and process 30,000,000 patents? (going by one species estimate) Patents last only 20 years anyway.

      Don't forget to buy a tin foil beanie hat [slashdot.org].

  • My own project... (Score:5, Funny)

    by spazoid12 ( 525450 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:16AM (#5070411)
    ...is to find and sample one of each of these tasty species within 20 years.

    • PETA would approve (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:22AM (#5070440)
      People for the Eating of Tasty Animals that is.
    • I recommend you start out by sampling all of the "insecta" class, and then work your way up to hobbitses.

      --sex [slashdot.org]

    • ... there are more non-tasty specieses than tasty ones. Just like the every-flavor beans.
      • there are more non-tasty specieses than tasty ones

        How do you figure?

        See, this particular subject has a special fascination with me. I'm always surprised by what various cultures do and don't eat. Somewhere around the world, you can find somebody who will eat any creature that has enough mass (or that exists in sufficient quantities) to make it worth their while. For example, in America we never eat horsemeat-- we feed it to our animals-- but in France and Belgium it's considered a delicacy. I've had horsemeat-- it's often prepared like lamb or mutton-- and found it to be quite delicious.

        I think every animal is tasty. It's just a question of finding a group of people who think it's okay to eat it.

        (Of course, the rules change completely when you talk about plants. We can't eat most plants, simply because our digestive system isn't set up for it. We have to eat heavily processed plants, like flour made from grains; juvenile plants or plant by-products like fruit; or plants that have been specially bred over the millennia to be perpetually juvenile. If you were to just go out and grab a handful of good old Kentucky crabgrass, you'd find it to be a memorable meal, but not one you'd long to repeat.)
        • And they all taste something like, but not quite, like chicken.
        • think every animal is tasty. It's just a question of finding a group of people who think it's okay to eat it.

          (Of course, the rules change completely when you talk about plants

          I was counting plants, fungi, and single-celled organism, most of which are probably not tasty. Most of these produce exciting chemicals that our bodies are not equipped to handle. Some species make these chemicals to avoid becoming salad, others as part of their metabolic processes.

          I will grant that most animals would probably be tasty if you can get over the "ick" factor. I expect the only non-tasty animals would be the ones who produce poisonous or bitter-tasting chemicals specifically in order to be non-tasty.

          Heck, I expect even worms would be tasty, properly prepared. Just about everything else we use as fish bait is (other fish, squid, clams, crawfish, rolled-up bread, etc).
        • Ted Nugent has a book out called Kill It and Grill It [amazon.com]. Here's a little excerpt:
          Ted Nugent likes to say, "You can't grill it until you kill it." Well, even if you don't kill it personally, now you can grill it just like the Nuge. In Kill It and Grill It, Ted Nugent shares his favorite recipes for such exotic fare as wild boar, pheasant, buffalo and venison.
          PETA doesn't like Ted very much. :-)

  • Shouldn't be too hard... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Quaoar ( 614366 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:17AM (#5070414)
    List of species known gets larger each year...

    List of species that aren't extinct gets smaller each year...

    The two numbers will eventually meet.
    • I've never bought this kind of statement. It's high on rhetoric and low on facts.

      'Facts' like this that can neither be proven nor disproven are often used by people with an agenda.

    • Re:Shouldn't be too hard... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:29AM (#5070473)
      You forgot to take into account the rate of speciation. About which we basically know nothing. Lots of theory and fossil evidence, but as to the rate of speciation occurring today, we know nothing.
      • It's a safe bet that the rate of speciation has gone down, though, given the shrinkage in available natural habitat. Speciation goes hand in hand with adaptive radiation (it's a part of it, actually), and with the number of unique ecosystems shrinking the potential of organisms to move into new niches decreases.

        • Re:Shouldn't be too hard... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:00AM (#5070570)
          It's a safe bet that the rate of speciation has gone down, though, given the shrinkage in available natural habitat.

          Ah, quite the contrary. It's my (imperfect) understanding that the rate of speciation goes up when resources are limited, and goes down during times of plenty.

          The theory is that differences in individuals aren't sufficient to lead to speciation until they become survival traits. In a lush environment, individuals with all sorts of different characteristics can be equally successful. But in a more constrained environment, different traits become survival factors, and individuals with specific survival traits will tend to interbreed, leading eventually to speciation.

          To use a really simple example, imagine a grassland populated by browsing mammals. The population is stable, the food and water sources are plentiful, the predation is low. Now kill off all the grass. Most of the browsing mammals will die off immediately. Some of them will have the (probably recessive) trait of being able to eat something other than grass; tree bark, maybe. Those individuals will survive and interbreed. Another group of the browsers will have the recessive trait of being able to eat dead browser. Those will survive-- thrive, even, given all the handy dead browserbeast carcasses lying around-- and interbreed. Eventually the two varieties of ex-browsers will drift far enough apart that they can no longer breed to produce fertile offspring. They'll become different species.

          That's the theory, anyway.
          • Hmmm. Okay ,that makes sense- I already knew the last paragraph, but hadn't really put it into the context of habitat destruction. I was confusing diversity and speciation there; I certainly don't expect to see large grazing animals radiating out, because they'll all get eaten first. What I was thinking is that segmentation of habitats effectively limits the potential for reproductive isolation; most organisms within a patch of rain forest surrounded by clearcut probably aren't going to do much adapting, at least not in 25 years. (Most animals, at least. I don't know how this project will deal with microorganisms- I suspect it won't, at least not very well.)

            I guess this relates to Gould's punctuated equilibria; I think the overall hypothesis is that repeated mass extinctions caused by catastrophe were followed by explosions in diversity, or something like that.
            • I guess this relates to Gould's punctuated equilibria; I think the overall hypothesis is that repeated mass extinctions caused by catastrophe were followed by explosions in diversity, or something like that.

              Whenever I've read about the punctuated equlibrium theory, I've thought of it in terms of laziness. Whenever a species can get by without doing any extra work, it will. I picture animals just lying around in the grass sunning themselves, because it's summertime and the livin's easy. But when faced with a threat, a species will evolve like crazy: gazelles will sprout wings to escape a charging lion. This may not be the most perfect interpretation of the theory, and of course it's not literally true, but it helps me remember it.

              • Re:Shouldn't be too hard... (Score:5, Informative)

                by Bicoid ( 631498 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @03:54AM (#5070869)
                Actually, it's more like this. Generally, the species is well evolved to its environment. Individuals in ALL extremes die regularly, so the only ones to survive and breed are those in the middle of the bell curve. This maintains that bell curve. However, a change in the environment suddenly occurs because we all know that the environment is not static. Suddenly, the individuals on one extreme are not dying out and the individuals on the other extreme are dying out much more. The morphospace that the species takes up then shifts until the individuals dying out on both extremes balance each other.

                Also, remember that it's species, not individuals, that evolve. Individuals survive or don't survive. That is all.

          • Re:Shouldn't be too hard... (Score:5, Funny)

            by fucksl4shd0t ( 630000 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @06:03AM (#5071165) Homepage Journal

            In a lush environment, individuals with all sorts of different characteristics can be equally successful.

            Thanks, dude. You've just explained to me why rock music has sucked so much since the early '90s.

      • Re:Shouldn't be too hard... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @04:02AM (#5070899)
        You forgot to take into account the rate of speciation. About which we basically know nothing. Lots of theory and fossil evidence, but as to the rate of speciation occurring today, we know nothing.

        That's right, there's need to worry about the possible extinction of tigers, elephants, orangutans or any other species. New species could be popping up to replace them even as we speak!

        Just think of the menagerie of crazy, fantastic creatures that could wink into existence at any time. Maybe thinning out today's boring selection will accelerate the process. I was just thinking how cool it would be to have a purple pet flying unicorn; I might get one yet if one happens to materialize! Or maybe a dinosaur the size of a T. Rex, but with soft golden fur and a gentle disposition.

        • I find your ideas fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
      • You forgot to take into account the rate of speciation. About which we basically know nothing. Lots of theory and fossil evidence, but as to the rate of speciation occurring today, we know nothing.

        Well, we know almost nothing about how speciation occurs, but one can make estimates of the rate. If there are 10 million species today, and almost all of them evolved within the last million years, then the rate is probably ten per year, give and take an order of magnitude.
        This numbers also illustrate that new the number of new species are not really relevant within this time frame. If 100 or a 1000 or 10000 new species form within the next ten years is of little consequence to a project aiming to categorize 10 million species.
        One caveot to all this is that in reality speciation is probably not linear but rather happens more like in bursts. To your point, that would indicate that if we are in the middle of such a burst (which I never have heard suggested, btw) then sure that could mess up our calculations.

        Tor

  • And... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Noodleroni ( 537889 ) <tuckerm AT noodleroni DOT com> on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:17AM (#5070417) Homepage
    And start out by figuring out which species CmdrTaco, Hemos, and CowboyNeal are.

  • That doesn't sound possible (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spooje ( 582773 ) <`spooje' `at' `hotmail.com'> on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:20AM (#5070427) Homepage
    Is that even theoretically possible? Since new species are always evolving wouldn't there always be new species to name?
    • Well, over the coarse of 25 years, perhaps a couple of new species will evolve but as long as they pop up slower than we can count them, should be ok.

      I think the problem is all of the tiny ecosystems all over the world. There are species of frogs that have only been found in a certain cave, etc. How many of those systems lie in places like the bottom of the ocean? Does anyone think we will have the bottom of the ocean explored to the kind of detail needed to search for worms in the next 25 years?
    • Taxonomists will be renaming and reclassifying species at a greater rate than anyone can discover and name them.

      Xix.

  • Hrm. (Score:5, Funny)

    by IcebergSlim ( 450399 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:23AM (#5070442)
    So they finally got too bored with trying to cure cancer?

  • Not as easy as it sounds. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Arcaeris ( 311424 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:26AM (#5070455)
    This will be a monumental undertaking. The current rate of discovery is a mere 10,000 a year. With an estimated 100 milion species, it'd take, well, forever.

    Animals won't be so bad. We figure we have a good knowledge of 10-15% of the animal species out there. It's only so long before we have them all. 25 years is a pretty long time for that.

    However, we only have catalogued something like .1% of all estimated species of microorganisms out there. Finding, isolating, and cataloging all of the microorganisms will take us much longer than animals simply because they're so tiny. This probably will take much longer than 25 years.

    Hell, even if we had them all, we'd never know what makes these species special and significant. The most important parts of species discovery could be lost in the mad rush.

    Not to mention:
    "Instead of the time-consuming present system of comparing new discoveries with museum species, there will be a worldwide web-based database."

    The issues of hacking/cracking, stability, reliability, and verification all boggle the mind. There's no way we'd be able to be sure.

    I think this guy is just trying to get publicity behind the idea that we should speed things up. Like a rallying war cry for the science nerd community.

    • Re:Not as easy as it sounds. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:59AM (#5070568)
      The current rate of discovery is a mere 10,000 a year. With an estimated 100 milion species, it'd take, well, forever.

      I think the idea is to identify species based on a genomic fingerprint- the usual marker is actually the sequence of 16S RNA (part of the ribosome). They simply collect as many samples as possible and feed them into the sequencer, and then use computers to determine the relationships.

      At least that's what I assume from the article. I don't really think this is worthwhile, because it's easy for two organisms to be nearly identical on the sequence level and still be non-mating. You could have a single polymorphism be the only thing separating two species simply because of change in color, metabolism, etc., coupled with reproductive isolation. In particular, 16S RNA is used for large-scale cladistics because it changes relatively little over time, but this means that the difference between an Amazonian Spotted Yellow Frog and an Amazonian Spotted Green Frog may be nil at that level.

      If they're looking at entire genomes, on the other hand, the technology simply won't be powerful enough for some time, particularly if they run into weird or huge genomes. Our genome is small compared to some of the projects underway, and the problem with everything on that scale is figuring out the damn repeats.
    • "Hell, even if we had them all, we'd never know what makes these species special and significant. The most important parts of species discovery could be lost in the mad rush."

      Isn't it better to at least have the genome down before a species goes extinct than nothing at all? I don't think the proposal is that this is _all_ that should be done, just that we should get that much done as quickly as possible.

      Once we've got all the genomes down, more detailed research will continue. And theoretically even if a species goes extinct, if we've got the genome we'll eventually be able to resurect the species later, at which point scientists can do all the research on it they want. (Not to mention restoring it to the wild.)

      As for the reliability, that would be a concern, but not as big a one as you make out. How many people would want to make up fake species? And could do so convincingly? Make sure the database gets backed up regularly to prevent it getting hacked, and as with any scientific endeavor make is subject to peer review.

      • Finding the genome of each species is much more than they propose. They just want to "find and name," which requires the successful identification of just one of each species.

        To come up with the entire genome for everything is something that is impossible. We still only have the genomes of only a handful of species now, and it's taken us forever to get them.
    • "The issues of hacking/cracking, stability, reliability, and verification all boggle the mind. There's no way we'd be able to be sure."

      But think of it, we could break into the systems and add our favorite species:

      Linuxius Penguin
      B.S.D. Daemon
      Microsoftor Jackass

      Think of the possibilities!
    • 10,000 a year. With an estimated 100 milion species, it'd take, well, forever.

      100 million / 10,000 = ummm... there sure are a lot of zeros there... infinity I guess.
      I always hated that confusing decimal point crap. Move it this way... move it that way... Yuck! I say just throw the damn thing out.

      Chuckle

      -

  • Count every species? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:26AM (#5070457)
    We can't even get to where most species *are* yet.

    And while I agree that taxonomy is an important part of biological science, cataloging life isn't the *point* of taxonomy. It might be rather more to the point to *preserve* these species, or at least their DNA (male and female, and put them, into the ark. Riiiiight)

    Honestly, I *do* understand what they're trying to do here, but it has an odd, and rather pathetic, feeling of pointlessness to it.

    KFG

  • Nice idea, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:27AM (#5070462) Journal
    Why don't they use this opportunity to create a large searchable database of every species while they are at it.

    They could include information such as name, ncientific name (the latin? stuff), physical Description, a few photographs of male and female specimins, eating preferences, defense mechanisms, known locations of presence, and other various notes.

    When it comes to the carnavores, you could make entries in their diet link to the victims' records.

    Then just make it searchable. Filterable by geographical area, species, keywords, etc. Very powerful. Then all you need is to make it publically available. Read-only of course.

  • I should start by saying that I think this is a noble project. The shadow that humanity is casting across the earth threatens to leave all other species in oblivion, except for those we have genetically engineered or deemed economically beneficial.

    A major technical problem, however, is trying to define the limits that constitute a species. This is sometimes tricky with animals, and in some families of plants, it is practically impossible. (If I remember my bio 101 correctly from all those years ago). The project sounds similar to what Lineus and the other naturalists were trying to do just before Darwin and the evolutionists bollixed everything up.

    I only hope we leave enough other species around so that when we go, the cockroaches inherit a viable planet. And in case they are listening, "we salute you, our insect overlords". Or perhaps an inanimate carbon rod will save us all.

  • All species is defunct...and this is a dupe (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:34AM (#5070491)
    At a national meeting I attendent before Christmas we learned that the All Species Foundation is for all intents and purposes defunct, with only a small governing board still existing (this from a board member). The whole project depended on philanthropy from Dot Com millionaires (the effort led in part by Kevin Kelly (sp?)), when the boom when down the tube so did the dream. There are still efforts to name all species and many posters here will mention the problems associated with this. Needless to say it won't happen in 22 years.

    P.S. this is a dupe of an earlier slashdot article, on which I ranted on the difficulty of the whole deal...

    (Goes back to describing species...)
  • It was the rare (or not?) everquesticus addicticus roommateonsis.

    They hibernate by day, and at night engage in peculiar mating rituals involving hooting at moving images made by their god.

    dammit... yesterday I offended the fantasy fans... tonight I offend the Everquesties... I must hate myself...

  • Grey areas... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by trotski ( 592530 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:38AM (#5070509)
    Hmmmm I suppose one of the major problems in this undertaking to attempting to solve "grey areas", IE what is a different species and what it not.

    A case in point is the Vancouver Island Marmot. This highly endangered animal is concidered a seperate species than the regular rocky mountain marmot. Even though the only major difference between the two is that the Vancouver island marmot has a patch on it's nose.

    Compare this to the difference in animals of the same species. A dalmation and a bulldog are concidered to be the same species of animal, even though they are vastly different in apperence and behavior.

    There are just examples of the thousands of grey areas the exist between species. So one must ask, how specific are they getting, what in these scientists eyes is a seperate species and what is simply a different race.

    By setting the standard for what is a species high, the task of discovering every species becomes much easier than if the bar was set lower.

    • Re:Grey areas... (Score:5, Informative)

      by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:05AM (#5070589)
      Great point. The best distinction that I've seen is simply that of "reproductive isolation", rather than phenotype. It's possible for two different species to mate and bear fertile offspring; however, they almost always don't. External phenotype on the other hand is a very poor marker of speciation.

      These nuances are almost always missed in evolution vs. creation debates. An population of organisms does not suddenly *poof* become a new species. There's no good way to measure speciation; it's a combination of environmental and genetic factors that builds up over time.

      The best book I've read on this is "The Diversity of Life" by Edward O. Wilson; it has a very clear and non-technical description of exactly how speciation occurs, and is very relevant to this article.
  • Even the unknown creatures that may live in Lake Vostok [bbc.co.uk]? Last I heard it was sorta hard to reach :)
  • All this will provide is a snapshot of the Earth's diverse species at a certain time, if successful.

    How do they propose to go into the deep reaches of the Amazon basin or into northern Canada/Siberia ?

    What about the minor localized species that exist now, but will be extinct in 20 years ? How do they plan to keep track of E V E R Y species and their current status ?

    I see this as an idealistic endavour but not feasible.

    It would be better to document the species that have more or less a direct impact on human living conditions and track them in detail. But I suppose that's already been done to a good extent.
    • "What about the minor localized species that exist now, but will be extinct in 20 years ? How do they plan to keep track of E V E R Y species and their current status ?"

      The whole _point_ of the endeavour is the "minor localized species that exist now, but will be extinct in 20 years." They don't want to keep track of current status, what they _want_ is a snapshot of the way things are now, before humans screw things up anymore than they already have.

      Of course, once the snapshot is taken, keeping track of future changes is fairly trivial in comparison.

      • They don't want to keep track of current status, what they _want_ is a snapshot of the way things are now, before humans screw things up anymore than they already have.

        Feasibility-wise, this would be pretty difficult.
        By the time, you enter the last species in the database, thousands if not more, would have evolved or adapted in some way from the time they were archived.

        There is hardly much point to the _point_ of the endavour. At best, it would be an archive of past splendor of life on Earth.

        I'm not sure how keeping track of future changes would be trivial. How do you keep track of physiological changes in 50000 insect species over the whole globe ?

        • There is hardly much point to the _point_ of the endavour. At best, it would be an archive of past splendor of life on Earth.

          Oh come on, wouldn't you like to take a few years off, grab some funding, and go tramping around the four corners of the globe? Why else would someone come up with something like this? Heh.

          I sense a movie about a scientist that goes wondering around South America looking for new species and getting chased by the headhunting natives for stealing a golden idol from a pyramid, only to run off to the middle east looking for species that were left behind by the jews to keep them out of Nazi hands...

  • Surname project funding (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:41AM (#5070518) Homepage Journal
    I suggested this to E. O. Wilson about 12 years ago:

    The various surname projects could be sold the right to name a species after their family as a kind of tribal totem. The ecological range of every species occupying a given area could then contribute to the purchase of that land area and stock holdings by various surname groups could control the land area. Areas with naturally higher biodiversity would have a lot more surname sales and therefore more tribal totems resident. This would be a good way to get people to identify their familial bloodlines with various species that would statistically favor preservation of high-biodiversity areas.

    At the time few of the surname projects that now exist on the internet were had come into existence. I think there is a lot more support for this sort of genealogical identity these days and totems may be a real commodity to sell in preservation of biodiversity.


  • a sub-category for Usenet trolls and goatse link posters?

    Thank you. Did I forget any other useful categories?

  • Blade Runner... (Score:3, Funny)

    by cliffiecee ( 136220 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @01:49AM (#5070534) Homepage Journal
    From the article...

    "Do you want to live in a grievously impoverished world, the world of the cult movie Bladerunner?"

    Umm... I guess 'yes' isn't the right answer here...

  • I'm a bit worried (Score:3, Funny)

    by long_john_stewart_mi ( 549153 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:02AM (#5070579)
    I'm a bit worried about this idea. I thought the search was over the day they discovered Spam.
  • I think it will be interesting to see the types of creatures that we find in the deepest depths of the ocean.. Maybe we might even get some pictures of the elusive Giant Squid [nasa.gov]!

  • All Species Foundation (Score:4, Informative)

    by webmaven ( 27463 ) <webmaven AT cox DOT net> on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:15AM (#5070621) Homepage
    This is the All Species Foundation [all-species.org], Kevin Kelly's [kk.org] latest brainchild.

    Kevin Kelly basically figured out how to give away a billion dollars. [kk.org]

  • very achievable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trailer Trash ( 60756 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:22AM (#5070641) Homepage
    Seems that with our current rate of extinction it should be pretty easy. Hell, there may be no work to do; maybe all the ones tha we don't know about will be dead in 25 years anyway.

    MDC

  • Sure. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 ) <slashdot@sup p a f l y .net> on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:22AM (#5070642)
    A hugely ambitious project to find and name every species on Earth within the next 25 years has been launched by scientists.

    Haven't they been doing that for the last couple of hundred years? What makes them think the can do it in 25 when a few hundred years of science has just barely scrapped the surface.
  • I could help them out, seeing as my room probably contains 300 or more here-to-unknown (or recently evolved) species alone (and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only slashdotter in this situation.
  • One way this group might go about collecting samples from every species (particulary from the ocean, where the greatest variety resides) is to run a sort of filter through the water/atmosphere at various depths, catching all manner of critters. Then, dump all the animals into some sort of machine that grinds them up processes them to collect DNA information which could be sorted into a large database.

    The major drawback is that we might not know what sort of creature a specific entry represents or even what it looks like... but at least we could catagorize a lot of things in a short amount of time.

    I'm not sure the technology exists to analyze so much organic material, but that could be something to work for.

  • Proving a negative... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jtdubs ( 61885 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:35AM (#5070672)
    Wow, I'm glad scientists have finally found a way around that pesky problem of not being able to prove negatives.

    Now we can finally prove that:

    a) There does not exist a species that we haven't found.
    b) God does not exist.

    These scientists seem to be morons if the slashdot headline is accurate (that'll be the day). An ambitious undertaking would have been to catalog 10x as many species next year as most years, and to continue doing so until we think we have them all. An impossible undertaking is to show that we haven't missed any in the process.

    Justin Dubs

  • Must not apply to microbes... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @02:41AM (#5070687) Homepage
    There are so many varieties and they evolve so quickly, that it would be impossible to catalog all of them because there are constantly new species being made. Besides, the distinction between divergent strains of a species and different but related species is completely arbitrary on that scale, because they don't have sexual reproduction. In mammals, the ability to produce fertile offspring generally draws the boundaries between species.
  • It occurs to me that one of the largest barriers to finding all the species on earth in the past has been that so many of them are hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. Exactly how do we plan to find them without destroying what has not yet been destroyed? Okay, assume that's accomplished. Then what? So we've found and named every species on earth! Good job! You get a cookie! Umm... Now what did that get us?

    I fail to see where this is a practical endeavor.

  • This seems impossible! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @03:38AM (#5070810) Homepage Journal
    Scientists are still finding new species of ants frequently. The last number was 11,006 according to Antbase [antbase.org].
  • And we are simplifying the problem by killing off most species first--then we don't have to to bother identifying and cataloging them.

  • Anthropology (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ndogg ( 158021 ) <the@rhorn.gmail@com> on Monday January 13, 2003 @04:30AM (#5070992) Homepage Journal
    They should start asking the indiginous people of the various places they go to about the animals they encounter, especially if they are nomadic. The folklore, myths, traditions, stories, etc. often serve purposes beyond that of creating a basis for religion. Many of them have been created to help them survive the environment they live in. Not only that, but they also seem to allow to live within these environments without destroying them. This is something anthropologists have known for some time now. Western biologists often have the bad habit of dismissing these things, particularly if they are tribal, under the misconceived notion that they are "primitive" and could not possibly understand the plants and animals around them, when in fact it's their vast amounts of knowledge of the plants and animals around them that allows them to survive.
  • I've been searching for nearly 6 years and I can't even find all my socks!

    Anyway, if they want to try they can start by checking the unidentified species growing under my bathroom sink. I tried killing it a few times but, uhhh... I've learned that it is a very very bad idea to make it angry.

    -
  • So, are they heading down into the depths of the sea then? There's very little known about that environment so far...

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • Every species in 2028? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by C A S S I E L ( 16009 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @08:02AM (#5071367) Homepage
    Here's an exhaustive list of every species which will be alive on the planet in 2028:

    1. Man.

  • convergeance is a wonderful thing (Score:3, Funny)

    by corvi42 ( 235814 ) on Monday January 13, 2003 @12:43PM (#5073238) Homepage Journal
    Well if species keep disappearing at a high rate, and researchers keep discovering new ones at a moderately slow rate - then eventually these two should converge at some point.

    So it follows that we should kill off more species to help these scientists in their noble task. ( amazing what absurd things can be done with pure logic )

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