Donors Invited to Name New Species at Scripps

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published April 15, 2008 at 11:10 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

What's in a name? For Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the names given to new species involve a lot of research...and money. Scripps is offering the public the naming rights to new ocean species f

Tom Fudge: If you're peering through your telescope at night and you discover a star that nobody's seen before, they'll name it after you. I don't know if that's true, but that's what they say.

The art of naming scientific discoveries is a process that abides by certain rules, and they've got a good understanding of those rules at Scripps Institution of Oceanography , which is part of UCSD. Scripps has discovered many new species of marine life over the years. Now the institution is trying to raise some money by allowing people to have new sea creatures named after them, if they donate a fair amount of cash to the institution.

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Guest

Greg Rouse , curator of the Benthic Invertebrates Collection at Scripps. He is in charge of the new species naming program at Scripps.