How Tech Empowers Citizen Science

Several years ago, I met inventor James Paar at a tech event in New York City. Paar was demoing his Open up Space Agency Ultrascope, an open-source, 3D-printed telescope (powered past a smartphone!) that's intended to make astronomy feasible for interested amateurs across the earth.

Paar's concept is that a widespread customs of these citizen scientists will be able to watch the sky for budgeted asteroids potentially on a collision course with Globe. They'll then report their sightings to NASA, exponentially expanding the agency's ability to monitor asteroid activity and maybe, well, save the planet.

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No role of this project would fifty-fifty be conceivable without today's technology—deject computing, high-speed networks, low-cost, loftier-performance computer chips, and of course, 3D printing. Michelle Z. Donahue's cover story in this month's issue of the PC Magazine Digital Edition—"Citizen Science: Practice Endeavor This at Domicile"—showcases a dazzling amount of like-minded projects, from global efforts similar to Paar'south to very local ones.

The Olfactory property Pittsburgh app, for instance, lets residents of my hometown tag nasty odors on a virtual map that shows other smell reports from that day; the results are also reported to the local health department.

If you lot've always had a yearning to notice more most the world around you, there's an excellent chance you lot tin can notice a tech-empowered citizen science endeavor to match your interests. Search online for "citizen scientific discipline projects" and, say, "oceanography" or "microbiology," and you could exist on your fashion to lab-glaze country. You can simultaneously add to humanity's collective knowledge and scratch your itch to learn.

At a time when some branches of scientific discipline are not given the credence and support they deserve and need, it'south heartening to come across that technology can democratize scientific study, making it available and affordable to everyday folks with a thirst for knowledge and a desire to contribute.

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