Overview
The Encyclopedia of Life project (EOL.org) was created in response to the vision E.O. Wilson presented at TED 2007 of “an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth.” An interactive version of the Tree of Life was needed, and the idea of representing 1.8 million species on the screen at once was very compelling. Marcos Weskamp’s great design and Gever Tulley’s technical ingenuity overcame what many would have considered an insurmountable problem: too much data, and too little screen real estate. A new kind of map was used: it turns the Tree of Life on its head and flattens it. Marcos will describe how he came up with the visualization, how it works and give a sneak peek at the future of exploring biodiversity.
