The Metropolis

Imperial's online tree of life: a good resource for anyone into the imponderable immensity of existence

Mike Pollitt | Thursday 25 October, 2012 16:00

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This video introduces this new website frome the biology bods of Imperial. It’s a clickable, zoomable, generally mess-aroundable tree of life.

When you start scrolling through the branches, zooming effortlessly through the vast generations of beings of the world, you feel a great sense of power. Your web browser has become a window looking out upon a vast panorama of life.

Then you realise that this sense of power is an illusion. In the context of this great tree, your life, and the life of your web browser, is of nothing. You are as lowly as a louse who’s just fallen out of a fuck off big oak tree. You are nothing.

So think on.

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