species encyclopedia

Encyclopedia sets can cost thousands of dollars and take up an entire book shelf with the many volumes. But, scientists have been trying to create something much simpler. Imagine an encyclopedia of all 1.8 million known species in the world. All comprised into one volume, no books, no bookshelves. This is precisely what is being created, a web-site named the Encyclopedia of Life. This web-sit wil allow you to find any species quick and easily, with every bit of information accessible on that one page. It is being written by an international team of scientists. So far they haven't even covered .1 million of the species, already amounting to 30,000 pages. They hope to finish it sometime in the next decade or so. They still have more than 1.7 million species to go, but one day it will all pay off. Until then we must visit the library and search though huge bulky encyclopedia volumes for the information we need.

Zimmer, Carl. "The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required" New York Times. March 7th, 2008.