Category: Biology

Recently researchers at Michigan State University have been turning their attention to how we study plant photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the biological process by which plants and algae convert light into storable energy for growth and survival. Quantifying photosynthesis levels can reveal a lot about plant health. For example how efficient is the plant in capturing […]

If you ever asked me how many kinds of spiders were there in the world, I would say there are two that I know of. The one with thin long legs that inhabit the walls of my house and keep me up at night, and the enormous one with hairy legs that inhabit theater screens […]

It’s likely you never expected to aid cutting edge cancer research by playing computer games, but the makers of NanoDoc are asking citizen scientists to do just that.   By designing nanoparticles – tiny clusters that are made up of only tens to thousands of atoms – and running simulations of how they interact in the […]

SciStarter has a whole round-up of tree-related projects for you this season. Branch out with citizen science! I’m fortunate not to suffer from airborne allergies where I live. But when I spent time in southern Mexico during college and couldn’t stop sneezing, I learned firsthand how bothersome allergy symptoms can be. For the 17 million Americans with […]

This project is part of our Back to School 2013 round-up of projects. Read more about them! Breast cancer is the single most common cancer in women worldwide with roughly 1 in 8 women developing the disease each year. Chances are, a friend or family member is coping with this diagnosis right now. Following Angelina […]

This is one bait you should take. What possibilities could you think of to use a super strong ‘molecular’ hook? That’s what the inventors of Super-Biotin are asking you. This challenge appears on Marblar, a startup that “crowdsources market applications for emerging and existing technologies” as Mr Daniel Bayley, project organizer and part of the […]

Think you’re safe in your pools this summer? You better double check! This invasive species has been taking over the mid-Atlantic region of the east coast. Contributor Nick Fordes gives us the scoop. I am always pleasantly surprised by the creativity of new citizen science projects.  Not only are projects using the power of crowdsourcing […]

This post originally appeared on the PLOS Blog Network. We’re down to the Final Four in this year’s NCAA tournament, and chances are your bracket isn’t looking too good. Welcome to the club. Worry not! We’ve got four citizen science projects that will help you make the most of Final Four weekend. MICHIGAN WOLVERINES fans… […]

Imagine something more mysterious than the trenches of the deep sea, more convoluted than the intricacies of the human genetic code, possibly even more infinite than the vastness of outer space. Meet the human brain. Memories, mental disorders, language capability, motor skills, and so much more are encoded in this singular organ. Yet, neuroscientists don’t […]

See that partridge in a pear tree? Make sure you count it for Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, one of the largest and longest running citizen science projects in existence today. It’s a 112 year tradition, with upwards of 60,000 person-days of effort and more than 60 million birds counted each year. “Each of the citizen […]