Crowd-sourcing has been a powerful tool in many respects; Kickstarter is just one wildly successful example and there are an increasing number of things that we’re using it for. We’re in an information age with extraordinary amounts of data, but there is so much information being collected that it’s hard to sift through. It’s being collected year round in every imaginable way. Some of it is useless, some of it’s secretive, and some can even further our knowledge.
That latter is where people like us can be useful while also learning something ourselves. Take https://www.zooniverse.org/ for example. It’s a site that lets you contribute to research around the world.
When you sign up, you register your name and can get credit for partaking in any research you do.
Let’s take a closer look at the Kepler mission. The data you are helping analyze are from NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft put in orbit in 2009 to find exoplanets—the mission to find planets outside of our solar system. Every 30 minutes or so, it collects the brightness from thousands of stars. It recently had some issues, and went into emergency mode in April 2016, but has since returned to its mission. When a planet passes in front of a star, the star’s brightness dips and we can infer the existence of a planet given a bit more information. There are many different types of light curves that have the potential to be seen and they help with this process.
If astronomy isn’t your thing, identifying animals from cameras in the wild may be for you. Utilizing motion sensors, cameras help researchers with migration patterns, distribution, and trends in the wildlife they see.
If you aren’t sure what you see, they have detailed tutorials to help you. In fact, you don’t even need to worry about making a mistake! You aren’t the last person to review all of the pictures you rate; many people see them. Until a consensus is made, the pictures remain under scrutiny.
Even literature and history take advantage of this platform.
There are so many topics that I can’t delve into them all here. However it looks like sifting through vast amounts of data together can help us reach our scientific goals much quicker. It’s very cool.
The past few years, Ebola has had its largest outbreak in history in West Africa. The symptoms of Ebola can be deadly, especially if left untreated. They are still looking to see if it can be spread in survivors as it stays longer in the eyes, testes, and spinal fluid. To help combat Ebola, Harvard geneticist, Pardis Sabeti, who has been studying infectious diseases, found its genetic sequence. Not only that, but detailed results were made available online so that scientists could download it to help find a better solution to the problem.
This website has all the information related to filoviruses. They are a group of viruses which Ebola belongs to. It is not as easy to navigate or contribute to as zooniverse, but there is a vast amount of data available for anyone willing to take on the challenge.
Some have even turned this data analysis into games that you play to research cancer. If only Candy Crush or Farmville could get involved in this!
With more powerful tools to collect data, we may have to rely on clever solutions that use our population and curiosity to its advantage to get things done efficiently. At the same time, we can get different viewpoints and perspectives while minimizing the chance of missing something. Indeed, it always helps to have a second pair of eyes—or a fourth, or even fortieth!
What else? Try classifying a galaxy, deciphering war documents, or naming animals in the Australian outback! Check it out and you’ll be surprised at how you can help and what you can learn along the way!