I'm not sure I understand the raison d'être for something like this. The press release itself states "Science itself has never been more global". Reading through the marketing text used on the press release, it's still unclear to me what their mission really is or how they plan to carry it out. "Building an online database" is meaningless in itself if 1)the periphery requirements aren't addressed (such as creating partnerships with organizations who can actually provide pragmatic solutions to obvious problems like broadband access to the database, interface design, etc), and 2) the tools and strategies used in the initiative remain open, free ("Free" both as "Free as in beer" as well as "free as in speech"), and transparent.

How receptive they are to ideas and platforms outside of their immediate sphere of influence will have a measurable effect on how far they can take this initiative. Marketing semantics aside ("synergy" is not a term I regard in very high esteem... ), the name "Scientists Without Borders" sounds sorta "Me-too" - Reporters and Doctors have a more clearly defined lineage and agenda to want to define themselves as "without borders". Scientists, I think, have never really felt that they were "with" borders.

Right now, this makes me worry strongly about effort duplication. If they go it alone they will find that have a very hard time maintaining the momentum necessary to manage something this ambitious, even coming from a great group of people like the NYAS.