A first of its kind project..
good thing - they will make the data public
bad thing - if companies start doing genomics, you never know where and how this will end...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062503374.html?hpid=topnews
another one, they keep coming
Per E. Ahlberg, Jennifer A. Clack, Ervns Lukevis, Henning Blom & Ivars Zupi
Nature 453, 1199-1204 (26 June 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06991
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/ventastega.php#more
I guess at least some people are familiar with the concept but it is good to spend some more time thinking over it, especially in the light of what is going on now
http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html
(click on the link, it is better formatted)