The Technology-Entertainment-Design (TED) conference that helped launch the Encyclopedia of Life and connect it with hi-techsters prepared a 4-minute, 13 MB video [download it here] that both reports on progress and shows some nifty features in store for future EOL users.

German journalist Heinz Horeis who specializes in energy and environment visited the PHE in late 2007. The Swiss weekly news magazine Weltwoche published in German 6 March 2008 a substantial version of Heinz’ longer English conversation with Jesse. A couple of excerpts:

“In twenty years, [renewable] sources will have failed economically, leaving renewable energy to be remembered as the energy equivalent of sub-prime mortgages. “

“But humans are not rational. Why do people buy lottery tickets? They hope for a solution, effectively by magic, as lottery jackpot odds are one in millions. Much of the enthusiasm for renewables is belief in magic. People tire of hearing about problems related to fossil fuels or nuclear power, presented in great detail for 30 years. Anything different sounds better. Humans want to believe. In a profound short story called the Kugelmass Episode by the American humorist Woody Allen, the dissatisfied hero rejects the psychoanalyst who has been trying to adjust Kugelmass to reality and chooses to patronize a magician instead, who works the miracle of transporting Kugelmass into the novel Madame Bovary, with whom Kugelmass then has an affair. Kugelmass, biomass.”

With the Encyclopedia of Life  launched, we post a photo of most of the participants in the brainstorming meeting sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in July 2006 where the EOL concept took off.  In the back row from the left: Brewster Kahle, John McCarter, Mark Costello, James Edwards, Jesse Ausubel; front row: John Hurley, David Patterson, Fred Grassle, Andrew Polaszek, Cristian Samper.