September 2009

Several days ago, we featured the NYC Cricket Crawl citizen science project sponsored by the Discover Live organization … and with a little rain delay from last night, tonight is now the night for event!

The exciting part for everyone not living in the greater New York City area (although, it certainly is a large area!), is that we can watch the results coming in live. So, check out all of the chirping action, and watch the latest in citizen science produce real results for real research!

Citizen Science activities certainly don’t have to cost a lot of money, and most of the projects we discuss here at DPR are essentially “free” to perform… but this project… now, this project does cost some money. But, it’s pretty darn awesome. And, following this line of extreme citizen science would be more tuned for a lager group or team who can contribute more financial assistance and expertise.

This is the ultimate model rocket launch, performed by the professional NASA astrophysicist by day and citizen scientist by night, Dr. Alex Antunes. Here, he is merging science with music with the plan to build an ionospheric detector with a device to convert the input signals to a MIDI stream that can be picked up by HAM radios. We’ll be able to “listen” to low-orbital space music for as long as the little satellite can survive.

Like I said… pretty, cool, right?

Follow the project on the blogs listed below, and wish the team great luck for a successful launch in 2010!

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in citizen science was certainly not on the minds of 6-year-old Alyson Yates and her mom, Kate, when they stepped out into their back yard one day to scout for ladybugs. But, their effort that day lead to a critical discovery that the Lost Ladybug Project from Cornell University had been long awaiting.

What the Yates found was the elusive nine-spotted ladybug, likely to have been overtaken in the United States by the Asian seven-spotted bugs imported in the 1970s and 80s to assist with crop pest control.

Now these little red fairytale creatures are living the high-life in Ithaca and breeding like wildfire. The hope is that the researchers will discover the true cause of the drastic decline of our classic native ladybug, and what might be a way to bring them back to our backyards.

Read more about this great success story of citizen science, and find our more about how you can participate in the Lost Ladybug Project…