What it does

Ispecies is a search engine that allows scientists and others to search for any species and retrieve a great deal of pertinent information about the species in question. The engine aggregates a number of different sources which include Wikipedia, NCBI, Yahoo Images, GBIF, and Google Scholar. Basically, search for any species that you are interested in and an entire page will be provided including the Wikipedia entry, genomics from NCBI, a map from GBIF, up to five images from Yahoo, and a host of articles provided by Google Scholar. This site makes a great starting point for anyone conducting research into any of the world’s species.

In their own words

“iSpecies is a test of E O Wilson's idea of a web page for each species. The data displayed are generated "on the fly" by querying other data sources.”

Why it might be a killer

This is a great starting point for professionals and amateurs alike who will enjoy being able to go to one page and receiving a wealth of background information without having to search each of the above noted pages separately.

Some questions

Have they considered integrating the search engine into a wider portal that would facilitate online collaboration amongst scientists?

Updates


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