On the eve of Thanksgiving, we tend to start our annual pondering about how we might give more to our friends and family, and maybe even to the world. Citizen scientists–whether they consciously realize it or not–are behaving in a uniquely giving mood with every bird they count, PC time they donate, comet […]

Last year, DPR AmSci Journal wrote about a great new citizen science program called Citizen Sky [read from August 26, 2009]. This project is collecting observational data on the current eclipsing of the variable binary star system epsilon Aurigae. The primary star is estimated to be 300 times the diameter […]

You must be quite familiar with what happens when you toss a pebble into a pond. You might describe the simple event as a massive rotating object splashing into a deformable fluid. Or, you might… not. However, astronomical bodies are like these pebbles sloshing around in a deformable fluid, called […]

Last year, Popular Mechanics featured a great “TOP SEVEN” List of most influential amateur researchers today. The recommendations were provided by Dr. Shawn Carlson, a former Scientific American columnist and the executive director of the Society for Amateur Scientists.

From retired computer programmers to high school educators, the list includes an exciting […]

This weekend marks the launch of the inaugural Open Science Summit conference in Berkeley, CA. The new program intends to be the centralized resource for the continued development in the scientific community of a new “open source” approach to scientific progress. This path toward enlightenment certainly includes a powerful role of […]