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News and notes

News and notes

Encyclopedia of Life opens

The Encyclopedia of Life, a collaborative encyclopedia devoted to cataloging all species of living organisms, opened this week. The encyclopedia is supported by a US$110.5 million grant from various organizations, including the MacArthur Foundation and the Sloan Foundation. The site started with 30,000 entries; upon its launch on 26 February, it was overrun by traffic, and reverted to a less server-intensive demonstration until 28 February.

The effort is similar to that of Wikispecies and other online projects; the initiative will apparently rely partially on existing projects, including the Catalogue of Life and Fishbase.

Website: EOL.org

Five resolutions pass

This week, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees announced five new resolutions. One of the resolutions officially selected new board member Domas Mituzas as the Board's Executive Secretary, replacing Erik Möller. The other four resolutions approved new Wikimedia chapters:

Esperanto administrator dies

English Wikipedia editor and Esperanto Wikipedia administrator William O'Ryan (Oryanw), died on February 12, 2008. O'Ryan contributed over 4,000 edits to the Esperanto Wikipedia, and 458 edits to the English Wikipedia. His last edits were in September.

Wikipedia cited in peer-reviewed medical journal

A paper submitted to peer-reviewed medical journal Genetics and Molecular Research cited Wikipedia; the only claim cited to Wikipedia within the paper, however, also includes the citation of a primary source.

Movie uses Wikipedia's GFDL images

Raul654 discovered that 2007 science fiction film The Last Mimzy used a series of DNA-related images from Wikipedia in a classroom scene, one of which was a derivative of an image first created by Raul654. He said that the images included Image:DNA-labels.png, Image:DNA Overview.png, and Image:Thymine chemical structure.png.

Briefly




Also this week:
  • Wales' relationship with journalist
  • Bureaucratship candidacies
  • Domas Mituzas interview
  • Hidden Categories
  • Book review
  • WikiProject elections
  • WikiWorld
  • News and notes
  • Dispatches
  • WikiProject report
  • Tutorial
  • Features and admins
  • Technology report
  • Arbitration report

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