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'Open Tree of Life' Shows How 2.3 Million Earthling Species Are Related

posted by janrinok on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-related-to-a-tree dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers from multiple institutions have come together to publish Earth's most complete family tree to date, illustrating the evolutionary relationships between about 2.3 million named species of lifeforms over the course of roughly 3.5 billion years on the planet.
...
While exhaustive, scientists still have a long way to go. That's because it's believed there are currently about 8.7 million species on the planet today and countless others from Earth's past that are yet to be catalogued.

In an effort to expand the tree even further over time, the researchers, who collaborated from 11 institutions, have put their work online at Open Tree of Life -- a massive and open-access digital depository where anyone can download, view and edit the tree -- a kind of "Wikipedia" for evolutionary trees.

It's an impressive feat to accomplish in 25 years, considering it took 90 years to complete the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, another large cataloguing project. The graphic is worth looking at, too.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:00PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:00PM (#241110) Homepage Journal

    Forget pruning. We're chopping the damned thing down for firewood. Gotta get that global warming engine running!

    --
    Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Funny=1, Total=1
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  • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday September 24 2015, @09:44PM

    by shortscreen (2252) on Thursday September 24 2015, @09:44PM (#241152) Journal

    Is that why clicking the link leads me to a blank page?

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @10:20PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 24 2015, @10:20PM (#241161) Homepage Journal

      You probably run addons, such as NoScript? I got tired of trying to make it work, and loaded the page in SRWare Iron. I don't have any blockers running in that browser, so it worked. It takes a while to load on my snail like 2 Mb connection. There's a lot of data there!

      --
      Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.

    • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday September 25 2015, @12:40AM

      by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Friday September 25 2015, @12:40AM (#241240) Journal

      It could be worse. I just run AdBlock and Ghostery. The thing is like one of those autorunners that were common on CDs during the 90s.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @08:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @08:01AM (#241380)

      This is the complete page:

      <!DOCTYPE html>
      <html>
      <head>
          <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
          <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge"/>
          <title>Open Tree of Life</title>
      <!--Adobe Edge Runtime-->
          <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="homepage-5-31_edgePreload.js"></script>
          <style>
              .edgeLoad-EDGE-94151724 { visibility:hidden; }
          </style>
      <!--Adobe Edge Runtime End-->
       
      </head>
      <body style="margin:0;padding:0;">
          <div id="Stage" class="EDGE-94151724">
          </div>
      </body>
      </html>

      I think that explains everything.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @10:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @10:53AM (#241427)

      Hate hate hate stupid JavaScipt required pages like that... well I wasn't so interested in their stuff anyways.

    • (Score: 2) by joshuajon on Friday September 25 2015, @02:21PM

      by joshuajon (807) on Friday September 25 2015, @02:21PM (#241485)

      Why does every single comments thread on this site need to include a vitriolic diatribe about NoScript, adblocking, etc. complete with needless hyperbole?! Yes, the web is a mess, and yes many of this sites users are smart enough to work around that fact. Let's drop the meta-threads of this nature pretty please?

      • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday September 27 2015, @12:51AM

        by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 27 2015, @12:51AM (#242099) Journal

        In this case; a scientific page that stubbornly remains blank unless you use the Microsoft Edge browser with an Adobe plugin? Or am I getting that wrong? Allowing the script doesn't do anything for me who doesn't use Microsoft.

        That's not even a hoop to jump through, it's a burning ring of fire with a portal into hell.

        25 years of work, purportedly “open”, and they stuffed it so far up into one of Satan's asses you have to French kiss him with an oversized tongue to get a taste of it, what a complete waste (and shame) :(

        --
        Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))

  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday September 25 2015, @08:19PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 25 2015, @08:19PM (#241656) Journal

    Yes, that way Jesus comes back quicker. I saw it on TV.