Slashdot: Encyclopedia of Life opened up to the public today with its first 30,000 pages in place — and, according to the AP, promptly crumbled even before being Slashdotted. (The site seems fine now.) We discussed this project last year when it was announced. The Telegraph has an overview of the launch, and reports that only 25 “exemplar” pages on the site are fully fleshed out to the extent scientists hope eventually to attain for all species; the other few tens of thousands are expanded placeholders. The project hopes to begin taking input from citizen-scientists late this year.

• Slashdot.org: Encyclopedia of Life Launches First 30,000 Pages

Today marks ten years since Netscape Communications Corporation announced its intention to release the source code of the then in-development Netscape Communicator 5.0, heralding the beginning of what would become the Mozilla project. At the same time, Netscape stopped charging for Netscape Navigator 4.0 and Netscape Communicator Standard Edition 4.0.

On Monday 23rd February 1998, mozilla.org was launched to coordinate development of the open-source code. The actual release of the Netscape Communicator 5.0 source code took place on Tuesday 31st March 1998.

Mitchell Baker, who has been involved with the Mozilla project from the outset, is asking for ideas of how to celebrate Mozilla’s tenth anniversary year.

Ten Years Ago Today: Netscape Announces Free Communicator Source Code Release - MozillaZine

Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.The new findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA, are reported in the 29 January 2008 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.”Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material—it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals,” said Lorenz. “This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan.”

Photo rendering: Copyright Kees Veenenbos

• ESA - Space Science - Titan’s surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth

Elliotte Rusty Harold prognosticates what he thinks is in store for XML.
The wheels of progress turn slowly, but turn they do. The crystal ball might be a little hazy, but the outline of XML’s future is becoming clear. The exact time line is a tad uncertain, but where XML is going isn’t. XML’s future lies with the Web, and more specifically with Web publishing.

It seems a little funny to have to say that. After all, isn’t publishing what the Web is about? The Web was designed first and foremost as a mechanism to publish information. What else can it do? Quite a lot. The last three years have seen an explosion of interest in Web applications that go far beyond traditional Web sites. Word processors, spreadsheets, games, diagramming tools, and more are all migrating into the browser. This trend will only accelerate in the coming year as local storage in Web browsers makes it increasingly possible to work offline. But XML is still firmly grounded in Web 1.0 publishing, and that’s still very important.

Read the full article:

• The future of XML

“Antarctica claims some of the best astronomical sky conditions in the world — devoid of clouds with steady air that makes for clear viewing. The very best conditions unfortunately lie deep in the interior on a high-altitude plateau called Dome A. With an elevation of up to 4,093m, it’s known as the most unapproachable point in the earth’s southernmost region. Now astronomers in a Chinese scientific expedition have set up an experimental observatory at Dome A after lugging their equipment across Antarctica with the help of Australia and the US. The observatory will hunt for alien planets, while also measuring the observing conditions at the site to see if it is worth trying to build bigger observatories there. The observatory is automated, pointing its telescopes on its own while astronomers monitor its progress from other locations around the world via satellite link. PLATO is powered by a gas generator, and has a 4000-litre tank of jet fuel to keep it running through the winter. The observatory will search for planets around other stars using an array of four 14.5-centimetre telescopes called the Chinese Small Telescope Array (CSTAR). Astronomers hope to return in 2009 with new instruments, including the Antarctica Schmidt Telescopes (AST-3), a trio of telescopes with 0.5-metre mirrors, which will be more sensitive to planets than CSTAR.”

• Slashdot | Robotic Telescope Installed on Antarctica Plateau