A BARCODE OF LIFE ON EARTH

London, Feb. 10. Scientists from 25 countries today took the first step towards the genetic fingerprinting of almost all life on Earth. A "barcode of life" project will record the sequence of just one vital gene shared by birds, mammals, fish, plants and other organisms, to provide a kind of biometric identity card for millions of species by 2010.

The scientists will start with the 1.7 million species already described and named. It will have an immediate payoff. Entomologists will be able to link accidental insect invaders at airports to the rogue's gallery of known crop pests, and officers will be able to tell whether fillets of fish or joints of meat have been illegally taken from protected species. But the real aim is to speed up the identification of an estimated 10 million species.

DNA identification by traditional methods requires specialist laboratories, skilled geneticists and long delays. The scientists, meeting at the Natural History Museum in London, hope that a standardised goal, new technology and a "gene chip" will soon reduce the time needed to hours.