DailyDirt: Biological Taxonomy 2.0

Classifying every kind of life form isn't an easy task. Technology helps a little bit, but there's no really quick way to scan for lifeforms just yet. Still, there are a bunch of folks out there who are obsessed with tracking and categorizing various animals and plants (and fungi and bacteria and...). Here are some cool projects that are working on identifying biodiversity from all over the world.

• The International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project aims to create a DNA-based reference library for all multi-cellular life on Earth. It's a fairly ambitious project, but at least they're not trying to look for extra-terrestrial life, too... [url]
• The Encyclopedia of Life project is like a Wikipedia just for biological organisms. A web page for every species, and a car in every garage? [url]
• A barcode-like system called Stripespotter is cataloging zebra stripes so that field researchers can track the zebras they've already photographed. The system could also potentially be used for other animals with unique fur patterns -- like tigers, giraffes or your pets. [url]
• Endangered sharks are being tracked by their DNA -- which can be used to tell where these sharks grew up geographically due to their mating behavior. Sharks don't need iPhones in order for people to track them, but they do need freakin' lasers on their heads already. [url]
• To discover more interesting biology-related stuff, check out what's currently running around on StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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