The elusive Babel fish

We launched an expedition in search of the famed Babel fish, the universal translator of languages. Our goal for the Babel fish was simple: help us find the data we seek by interpreting the ecological metadata from the community of ecologists. We had a team of experts: computer scientists, information managers, and ecologists. We had the latest technologies: a large and complex and FAIR data repository, and cutting-edge machine learning algorithms. We had funding. The Babel fish remains elusive, although traces of its existence were found. Finding it may require that scientists change their data curation and archiving practices.