Ever wonder if you have the right stuff to become a scientist? You may be able to find out with these cool citizen science projects. For space lovers, SETI@home harnesses the computing power of millions participants to search for extraterrestrial life. Galaxy Zoo: Hubble enlists volunteer astronomers as classifiers of heavenly objects.
For budding naturalists, The Great Sunflower Project is for you. Citizen scientists take 15-minute counts of the number and types of bees visiting sunflowers and other plants in yards, gardens, schoolyards, and parks. The information submitted helps shed light on the health and numbers of ailing honey bee populations.
Are you a puzzle solver? Try Foldit. You may end up helping research teams at the University of Washington and Harvard University in developing pathogen capture proteins to seek out and remove circulating invaders such as Salmonella and Staphylococcus.
For even more space, climate, nature, and humanities citizen science projects check out Zooniverse. I'm headed there now!
Have you seen the Symphony of Science website? It is awesome! Science and music combine to offer scientific knowledge in a novel way via music clips and re-mixed scientists.
My favorite so far is We Are Star Dust. The tune is catchy. I'm humming it now. It's also a great tool for teachers to jazz up chemistry, biology and physics lessons.
In addition, the Symphony of Science project offers presentations on dinosaurs, Mars, space, reality, ancient/native peoples, and the environment among others.
If you're like me, adding another social media program to an already full plate is daunting. But, I'm a visually oriented science geek and Pinterest feeds my need for the latest science images/links and allows me to SAVE them. So I justify the hours I spend on Pinterest as getting organized!
It's fun and something I've come to look forward to. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm way ahead of the curve in keeping up with science, photography, writing, humor, cooking, etc. Plus, I get to exchange favorite wow moments with the ease of a "pin". Here is a link to my science and nature board. http://pinterest.com/sciwhisperer/science/
Send me your favorites. I can hardly wait!
You know you have a strong science bent when you get excited about Bill Nye the Science Guy making new Consider the Following videos. Well I am and he did. Check out Bill's simple explanation on how fast time passes on Earth compared to outer space. You might be surprise at the answer! http://www.billnye.com/media/consider-the-following-videos/
How appropriate that during the 2012 Olympics NASA has landed the heaviest and most complex science vehicle ever built on Mars. After a 3 year trip, Curiosity landed safely and has already sent back low resolution pictures of its local neighborhood. High resolution shots will follow next week after a mast is deployed. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/06aug_success/
Congratulations to the NASA engineering team and all the men and women of NASA who worked on the mission so far. You've won gold!
Remember, the Mars rover Curiosity is scheduled to land in the wee hours tonight/tomorrow morning after a 36 week journey from Earth. You can join millions of other science fans holding their breath during the 7 minutes of terror when the landing process takes place. Will all the steps happen as planned? Tune in! http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
If you enjoy spying cosmic coolness in the night sky, you won't want to miss the alignment in the west/southwest sky tomorrow evening at twilight of Mars, Saturn, and the star Spica. Here is a link for a sneak peek to what you will see.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance/
Enjoy!
