So........we're NOT the world then, quite so much?

Another excellent science lesson from 'I fucking love science' on FB.

Very cool infographic from National Geographic - how many species have been identified, and how many do we think there are left to discover?
More info: http://bit.ly/UJ75oj

So much for the ignorant right wing premise....expressed by Ann Coulter, back in October 2000:

The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view.

Take a look, reconsider; we're only one species on this planet. What is hazardous for those other species is ultimately hazardous for us, too. We share in many cases more than 90% of the DNA of other species of animals; and we share some >50% of the same DNA as bananas, and even higher percentages with other species:
Humans and banana trees share about 55% of the same DNA.

As you look farther back down the evolutionary line to things like bacteria, we share around 40% of their DNA. As you slowly get closer to humans, we begin to share more and more. We share over 60% of our DNA with insects, 75% of our DNA is identical to reptiles, most mammals have 90% of the same DNA as us, and we share 98% of our DNA with chimps, our closest relatives.

And as the info-graphic notes - these are just the approximate percentage of the species we've discovered so far.