The Man of the Hour: Mr. Flower Power, the King of Flowers, Carl Linnaeus

This Saturday marks the beginning of the Linnaeus 2007 celebration in Sweden for Carolus Linnaeus aka Carl Linneus aka Carl von Linne who was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who gave the world the gift of taxonomy or the method for classifying and naming organisms. This year's celebration focuses on Linnaeus method for classifying tulip bulbs.

Linnaeus was the originator of the binomial nomenclature system, without him there would be no Homo sapiens. His original system had three kingdoms divided into Classes, further divided into Orders, then divided into Genera, then divided into Species.

Linnaeus's work had a profound influence on scientists such as Charles Darwin and the area of research known as comparative biology. Comparative biology is instrumental in our understanding of living organisms. The predictive techniques of biologists become increasingly powerful as more information is utilized comparing across many related organisms. This in turn adds to researchers' abilities to identify novel drug targets and annotate genomes.