Category: Citizen Science
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The “Last Starfighter” Model for Citizen Science
This article was first published in Scientific American. Alex Rogan masters a video game called “Starfighter” where he defends “the Frontier” from “Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada” in a space battle. Soon after he becomes the world’s highest scoring player, the teenager meets an alien who informs him that the battle is real! The video…
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Launching Disk Detective: A New Citizen Science Website
Dear Colleagues, Last year, I made three science-marketing new years resolutions: clean my desk, spruce up my webpage, and launch a citizen science project. The desk and the webpage—let’s say they are still works in progress. But I am proud to say that this week is the launch of DiskDetective.org, a new citizen science project…
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Interview with Chris Lintott: Providing an Entry Drug to Science
Scientists, Once upon a time, Kevin Schawinski and Chris Lintott were working with a large surveys of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, trying to classify them based on their shapes: elliptical, spiral, irregular and so on. They ran into a problem. The computer software for making these classifications kept making mistakes. The human brain, it turns out,…
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Putting Science Back Into The Broader Culture: Interview with Jennifer Ouellette
Scientists, The journalists I’ve interviewed so far may have painted jarring pictures of the decline of print science news and less-than-flattering portraits of the science blogosphere. But this week, I have for you an interview with a science writer and blogger known for her fresh view of the science communication world, her glamor and playfulness. Jennifer…