Right now, there’s not one single place, but Encyclopedia of Life is trying to change that.

Encyclopedia of Life is now available online as a work in progress. BBC’s article, First look at vast ‘book of life’, gives more details about this cooperative undertaking.

If all goes according to plan, the site will feature 1.8 million species of plants and wildlife by 2017.

The site is designed to be used by everyone, including scientists or students. And they are looking for help.

You can take a survey, volunteer to become a curator for a species page, provide content or become a donor. Right now, the site has around 25 exemplar species pages which have been authenticated by scientists and thousands of other pages that are also authenticated, but lack the broad array of facts found on the exemplar pages.

So, go on and read about the Death Cap Mushroom. You know you want to. Then, check out the Black-and-Yellow Argiope (Warning to Jennifer, this is a spider!).

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

how long will it take to decompose…

Cotton rags
1-5 months

Paper
2-5 months

Rope
3-14 months

Orange peels
6 months

Wool socks
1 to 5 years

Cigarette butts
1 to 12 years

Plastic coated paper milk cartons
5 years

Leather shoes
25 to 40 years

Nylon fabric
30 to 40 years

Tin cans
50 to 100 years

Aluminum cans
80 to 100 years

Plastic 6-pack holder rings
450 years

Glass bottles
1 million years

Plastic bottles
Forever

If you aren’t already recycling (composting counts!) all you can, you need to, or your great grandkids 10 times over are going to find your trash from yesterday. Here’s some help: How to Recycle Practically Anything.

Get the kids involved:
Trash 4 Kids has a great online recycling game for the littles in the house!

Bonus info you’ll love:
To learn more about how scientists date the decomposition process read Will My Plastic Bag Still Be Here in 2507. It’s a great article.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family