The rise of the citizen scientist
Nature, 23 Aug 2015.
Science is not just for scientists these days. Going on a scuba-diving holiday this summer? Share the temperature data from your dive computer with researchers eager to plug holes in sparse records for inshore areas. Nervous about possible pollution from a nearby fracking project? Ease your concerns by helping to collect and analyse air samples as part of a monitoring project. Stuck at home as the rain pours down? Log on to the Internet and spend a couple of hours folding proteins and RNA to help university scientists work out how biology does it. Read the full story in Nature.
A citizen scientist logs a turtle sighting on REDMAP (photo: Loren Mariani)