Has a company really discovered a million new species?

About this episode

The episode discusses the claim of discovering a million new species and the methods behind counting them.

Have a million new species just been discovered? That’s the claim made by Dr Oliver Vince, co-founder of a company called Basecamp Research, who are collecting genetic data to train AI systems. The hope is that they’ll be able to use this to discover new medicines. But is this number a good one? Rob Finn, from the European Bioinformatics Institute, explains what is being counted and how you go about counting them. Credits: Presenter and producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Dave O’Neill Editor: Richard Vadon

People in this episode

Host: Tom Colls

Guests: Dr Oliver Vince, Rob Finn

Topics covered

• species discovery
• genetic data
• AI systems
• medicine
• bioinformatics

Keywords

• species
• genetic data
• AI
• medicines
• bioinformatics
• Basecamp Research

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Basecamp Research, European Bioinformatics Institute

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