Today this site opened and it has been getting HAMMERED with hits from all over the globe, I understand they crashed this afternoon and it's REALLY slow as I type this. Very interesting idea. The aliens now have a primer!

http://www.eol.org/

What is it?

Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about all life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goals are to:

* Create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike.

* Transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating virtually all known data about every living species.

* Engage a wide audience of schoolchildren, educators, citizen scientists, academics and those who are just curious about Earth's species.

* Increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

sweet, I remember reading about this initiative a few months ago, good to see it's moving forward.

I'm just getting "Service not available" messages. I guess I'll just have to wait a few weeks until the initial interest wears out or some backend upgrades occur.