Wild world: Millions of unseen species fill Earth

Our world is a much wilder place than it looks. A new study estimates that Earth has almost 8.8 million species, but we've only discovered about a quarter of them. And some of the yet-to-be-seen ones could be in our own backyards, scientists say.

So far, only 1.9 million species have been found. Recent discoveries have been small and weird: a psychedelic frogfish, a lizard the size of a dime and even a blind hairy mini-lobster at the bottom of the ocean.

"We are really fairly ignorant of the complexity and colorfulness of this amazing planet," said the study's co-author, Boris Worm, a biology professor at Canada's Dalhousie University. "We need to expose more people to those wonders. It really makes you feel differently about this place we inhabit."

While some scientists and others may question why we need to know the number of species, others say it's important.

There are potential benefits from these undiscovered species, which need to be found before they disappear from the planet, said famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who was not part of this study. Some of modern medicine comes from unusual plants and animals.

"We won't know the benefits to humanity (from these species), which potentially are enormous," the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson said. "If we're going to advance medical science, we need to know what's in the environment."

Biologists have long known that there's more to Earth than it seems, estimating the number of species to be somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Figuring out how much is difficult.

Worm and Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii used complex mathematical models and the pace of discoveries of not only species, but of higher classifications such as family to come up with their estimate.

Their study, published Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science, estimated the number of species at nearly 8.8 million.

Of those species, 6.5 million would be on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, which is a priority for the scientists doing the work since they are part of the Census of Marine Life, an international group of scientists trying to record all the life in the ocean.

The research estimates that animals rule with 7.8 million species, followed by fungi with 611,000 and plants with just shy of 300,000 species.

While some new species like the strange mini-lobster are in exotic places such as undersea vents, "many of these species that remain to be discovered can be found literally in our own backyards," Mora said.

Outside scientists, such as Wilson and preeminent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University, praised the study, although some said even the 8.8 million number may be too low.

The study said it could be off by about 1.3 million species, with the number somewhere between 7.5 million and 10.1 million. But evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State University said he thinks the study is not good enough to be even that exact and could be wrong by millions.

Hedges knows firsthand about small species.
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Aamir Khan is the new MUNNABHAI

According to latest grapevine Amir Khan and Sharman joshi will replace by the famous actor Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi as munna bhai and circuit respectively. Dutt has been dropped from the third part as he is too old for the film now; producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra finally breaks the suspense.

Talking to a daily, the official representative of Chopra rubbished the rumours saying, “We are not even ready with the script of the next ‘Munna Bhai’ flick and this is a baseless humour. Vidhu Vinod Chopra doesn’t begin the casting for his films until he completes his script. Besides, Aamir Khan is not free for another two years.”
We are all known that Amir Khan is the most famous actor in the bollywood Industry. He had got many Hindi movie and he get many rewarded. Aamir and Sharman have amazing comic timing and also great chemistry onscreen. You can see that even in their first film together, Rang De Basanti is the most popular movie.
When he shared the idea with Aamir, he loved it. He told Rajkumar that he would be game for it if the script was interesting."

Another source says, "Though Sanjay played Munna Bhai to perfection, having Aamir on board will take the franchise to the next level. He is not only a fine actor, but also a much bigger brand name, and a marketing genius."
A source closely working with the franchise informs, "A few months ago, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani had a closed door meeting with Sanju, where they told him that they would not be going ahead with him in the Munna Bhai sequel.
This definitely upset Sanju." It may be noted that Chopra and Hirani were conspicuous by their absence at Sanjay and Maanyata's party, recently.When contacted, Hirani denied these claims.