Category: Health

Editor’s note: The Smell Experience Project is one of more than 800 projects on SciStarter. Use our project finder to search and participate in citizen science that interests you! I hate the smell of a mall. Everything reeks of that seemingly incurable lust for stuff—‘buy me, buy me’ is the cry. It’s as if the building is overdosing on […]

This post, written by Christine Nieves, originally appeared on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneering Ideas blog.  Check out the citizen science projects mentioned in the post, such as: FoldIt, Sound Around You, and FightMalaria@Home. I remember the distinct feeling of learning about Foldit. It was a mixture of awe and hope for the potential breakthrough contributions a […]

Editor’s Note: Flight MH17 was a horrible tragedy, with many lives lost, including HIV/AIDS researchers en route to a conference.   In Caren Cooper’s latest Coop’s Citizen Sci Scoop, she explains how citizen science assisted with AIDS research, and how AIDS activists were able to become participatory members of the medical and scientific process.  Here, in full, […]

This post is part of Exploring a Culture of Health, a citizen science series brought to you by Discover Magazine, SciStarter and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, serving as an ally to help Americans work together to build a national Culture of Health that enables everyone to lead healthier lives now and for generations to come. There is a […]

Participate in American Gut to find out what bacteria live in your body and help scientists gather data on the diversity of microorganisms that affect our health. Explore the microbiome around and inside you with these citizen science projects! Bacteria usually get a pretty bad rap. Perpetrators of strep throat, food poisoning, hospital infections, the […]

They’re all around us–microbes, that is! Think of them as the neighbors you’ll never really meet. Here are some projects to help you explore the microbiome on earth, in space, and inside our own bodies. Project MERCCURI It’s time! Microbes collected by citizen scientists are heading to the International Space Station this weekend! This project […]

Thanks to the Independence National Historical Park for giving me access to the Liberty Bell. I had a lot of fun collecting microbes from this national treasure in my hometown! Happy to announce that the microbes from the Liberty Bell have been selected to fly on the International Space Station where their growth rates will […]

Make sure you’re on Santa’s “nice list” this year. Lend your hands, hearts and brains to science during these 12 days leading up to Christmas! On the 1st day of Christmas, the Alliance for Saving Threatened Forests gave to me: A chance to monitor the invasive insects that attack both hemlocks and Fraser firs (the most popular […]

Winter is here! Check out more winter weather themed citizen science projects at Scistarter. Here in the northern hemisphere, by this time of year, the signs of winter are nearly fully developed. Pea coats to defend us from the cold, denuded forests, grasses in gowns of morning white, and, of course, symptoms of the flu […]

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 […]