iTunes, embedded metadata, and DNA barcoding

Continuing on this theme of embedded metadata, this is one reason why DNA barcodingis so appealing. A DNA barcode is rather like embedded metadata -- once we extract it we can look up the sequence and determine the organism's identity (or, at least whether we've seen it before). It's very like identifying a CD based on a hash computed from the track lengths. Traditional identification is more complicated, involves more nebulous data (lets see, my frog has two bumps on the head, gee, are those things in that picture of a frog bumps?), much of which is not online.