(Press-News.org) Though public participation in scientific research has deep roots in the history of science, in the last few years it has taken off spectacularly from launch pads across the disciplines of science and education, fueled by advances in communications technology and a sea change in a scientific culture now eager to welcome outsiders as collaborators.
Citizen science, crowd-sourced science, DIY research, volunteer monitoring, community participatory action research – the variety of banners flying over participatory science projects reflects the diversity of their origins, from astronomy to zoology. This August, the first cross-disciplinary conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research will bring the clans together as part of the Ecological Society of America's 2012 annual meeting in Portland, Oregon.
Citizen science projects give non-specialists the power to apply their curiosity about the natural world, and their love of puzzles and games, to real scientific questions. Projects have recruited naturalists and novices to classify galaxies, refine protein models, align DNA sequences, identify and count birds, record weather, and track plant and animal life through the changing of the seasons.
"The participatory science field has been growing, but in isolated silos. Even within the environmental sciences, the water quality people self-organize separately from the biology people," said Abe Miller- Rushing, one of the meeting organizers, and a science coordinator for the National Park Service. "We really wanted to have an open-invite meeting that emphasized innovation, and could kick-start conversations."
Miller-Rushing will open the conference with a presentation on the history of public participation in scientific research. He has a paper on the same topic, with Richard Primack of Boston University and Rick Bonney of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in the upcoming August 2012 special issue of ESA's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, "Citizen Science – new pathways to public involvement in research," timed to coincide with the conference.
Other invited speakers hail from public health, biochemistry, education, geography, and atmospheric sciences, at universities, government agencies, and indigenous organizations. Organizers expect over 150 poster presentations.
Many participatory science initiatives started with a researcher's need for additional hands, eyes, and boots on the ground. With the help of dedicated hobbyists, enthusiastic school kids and teachers, and curious on-lookers, they could multiply data collection and analysis by orders of magnitude, essentially creating thousands of lab and field assistants.
Educators and scientific organizations soon saw the potential for learning-through-doing, drawing the practice of science back into public life – from which it has grown increasingly estranged.
Though projects are diverse in style and application, they overlap in their need for large data repositories, attractive user interfaces, sustainable funding and management, connectivity with their volunteers, recruitment, and quality control. The conference offers a chance to cross-pollinate, and share ideas.
"The conference comes at a time when citizen science is gaining significant momentum in advancing scientific knowledge and enhancing science education," said Sandra Henderson, director of NEON's Project BudBurst, guest editor for Frontiers' "Citizen Science" special issue, and an advisor for the Public Participation in Scientific Research conference. "This conference will bring diverse stakeholders together to form new communities that will help citizen science reach its full potential in addressing the needs of science and society."
INFORMATION:
The Ecological Society of America's 2012 annual meeting, Aug. 5-10 in Portland, Oregon, is free for reporters with a recognized press card and institutional press officers. Registration is also waived for current members of the National Association of Science Writers, the Canadian Science Writers Association, the International Science Writers Association and the Society of Environmental Journalists. In a break from previous policy, meeting presentations are not embargoed.
Press interested in attending the Public Participation in Scientific Research conference or other portions of ESA's annual meeting should contact Liza Lester, llester@esa.org, 202-833-8773 x211.
National Workshop on Public Participation in Scientific Research
Saturday and Sunday, August 4-5, 2012, Oregon Convention Center, Portland
This conference is made possible by the generous support of the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. Additional support is provided by Nature, the Ecological Society of America, DataONE, and the Association of Science Technology Centers.
Detailed information and schedule available at: http://www.citizenscience.org/community/conference2012/
The August issue of ESA's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment will be devoted to "Citizen Science – new pathways to public involvement in research." This special issue was underwritten by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This issue will be entirely open access but journalists may contact Liza Lester to access journal content prior to its publication on August 1.
END
Scientists at the University of Manchester have uncovered how the internal mechanisms in nerve cells wire the brain. The findings open up new avenues in the investigation of neurodegenerative diseases by analysing the cellular processes underlying these conditions.
Dr Andreas Prokop and his team at the Faculty of Life Sciences have been studying the growth of axons, the thin cable-like extensions of nerve cells that wire the brain. If axons don't develop properly this can lead to birth disorders, mental and physical impairments and the gradual decay of brain capacity ...
VIDEO:
When food is abundant, it seems that animals do not have to compete but dominant deer hinds still uphold rivalry and select the most nutritious food to maintain their status....
Click here for more information.
Deer hinds (Cervus elaphus) have a hierarchical organisation system: the oldest and largest hold the most dominant positions. Therefore, a nutrient rich diet benefits the more dominant hinds, who have preferential access to the best food sources. This allows ...
Innovative research published by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Bradford uses laser microscopes to explore how stone tools were used in prehistory, and the process has helped streamline surface measurement techniques for modern manufacturers.
The analysis of stone tools is a key factor in understanding early human life including social organisation and diet. Archaeologists at the University of Bradford hypothesised that reconstructing past activities was the best way to study what each tool was used for. They proposed to measure the surface ...
WASHINGTON -– U.S. Naval Research Laboratory scientists from the Radio Astrophysics and Sensing Section of the Remote Sensing Division in conjunction with radio astronomers and engineers from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Socorro, N.M., achieve "First Light" image, May 1, 2012, at frequencies below 1-gigahertz (GHz) on the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA).
Through the combined expertise of NRL and NRAO scientists and engineers, a new, modern, wide-band receiver system has been developed and is being deployed onboard the JVLA to enable much more sensitive ...
Charlottesville, VA (July 20, 2012). Surgeons from the Instituto de Patologia da Coluna in Sao Paulo, Brazil have found that an innovative minimally invasive surgical procedure performed to achieve two-level axial lumbar interbody fusion produced immediate successful results, but within 2 years complications set in, making the procedure far less desirable. Findings of this study are reported in the article "Results and complications after 2-level axial lumbar interbody fusion with a minimum 2-year follow-up. Clinical article," by Luis Marchi, Leonardo Oliveira, Etevaldo ...
Philadelphia, PA, July 20, 2012 – A new program that trains emergency medical service technicians (EMS) to read electrocardiograms so that they can evaluate patients with chest pain, and expedite treatment for the severe heart condition known as ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), a serious form of heart attack, has excellent results and should become the standard of care, according to two studies published in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.
"It's well established that morbidity and mortality in myocardial infarctions is directly ...
For many years, Titan's thick, methane- and nitrogen-rich atmosphere kept astronomers from seeing what lies beneath. Saturn's largest moon appeared through telescopes as a hazy orange orb, in contrast to other heavily cratered moons in the solar system.
In 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft — a probe that flies by Titan as it orbits Saturn — penetrated Titan's haze, providing scientists with their first detailed images of the surface. Radar images revealed an icy terrain carved out over millions of years by rivers of liquid methane, similar to how rivers of water have ...
The numbers of people in Germany who are blind or visually impaired is going down. Robert P. Finger and his co-authors present their findings in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109[27/28]: 484-9).
The aging of the population would lead one to expect an increase in the numbers of blind and visually impaired—for in most cases the main reason for loss of vision is an age-related disease. Rates of macular degeneration, for example, and diabetes-related eye disease both go up with age. At the same time, however, the numbers ...
Researchers at the Institute for Agrobiotechnology (a mixed research centre set up by the Public University of Navarre, the CSIC-National Scientific Research Council, and the Government of Navarre) are designing, by means of laser application, nanostructured reliefs on surfaces so that they acquire antibacterial properties and are more resistant to the formation of bacterial biofilms. The authors of the research say that in the preliminary tests carried out so far with the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus a reduction in the region of 65-70% has been confirmed in the adhesion ...
(Boston) – A research study led by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, in collaboration with a global consortium, has identified genetic markers that influence a protein involved in regulating estrogen and testosterone levels in the bloodstream. The results, published online in PLoS Genetics, also reveal that some of the genetic markers for this protein are near genes related to liver function, metabolism and type 2 diabetes, demonstrating an important genetic connection between the metabolic and reproductive systems ...