Blogs Archives - Science Connected Magazine

Book Reviews Citizen Science Connected Blog

Reflecting on the Life of a Citizen Scientist

July 19, 2019July 17, 2019 Science Connectedbook review, citizen science, giraffes, memoir

by Danielle Griffin Smitten by Giraffe: My Life as a Citizen Scientist is a memoir by Anne Innis Dagg. In the text, she describes her pursuits as a citizen scientist, ranging from her first encounter with giraffe (the plural of giraffe used in Smitten By Giraffe is “giraffe”) as a child, through her studies at the University of Toronto in the 1950s, to her more recent projects. Dagg calls herself a citizen scientist, but like many other citizen scientists, she has in fact worn many hats in her long and…

Citizen Science Connected Blog Ecology

Protect Local Waterways with the EarthEcho Water Challenge

July 16, 2019July 17, 2019 Science Connectedwater, water contamination, water testing, waterways

By Sean Russell On March 22, this year’s EarthEcho Water Challenge kicked off, empowering young people and community members around the world to monitor and protect local water resources in their communities. Initiated in 2003 as the World Water Monitoring Challenge (in celebration of the U.S. Clean Water Act), this year-round, global program is designed to connect anyone, of any age, to their local water resources through water quality monitoring. Participants share their water quality data through the global EarthEcho Water Challenge online database, contributing to our understanding of the…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog Environment Health

You Can Help Beat Extreme Heat in Cities

July 2, 2019July 2, 2019 Science Connectedcities, climate, cooling, heat, heat island, urban climate, urban heat

Imagine a smoldering hot day in downtown Boston: temperatures have reached over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sidewalks and streets are absorbing the strong heat from the sun and radiating it back into the air. Days like this are becoming hotter and more frequent. This “silent storm” causes more deaths in the US than all other weather hazards combined. Heat impacts human health, infrastructure, and the environment. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect Urban areas trap heat inside of them, experiencing hotter temperatures than in surrounding suburban areas. Cities are…

Biology Citizen Science Connected Blog Oceanography

Ocean Conservation and Citizen Science at the Long Beach Scuba Show

June 24, 2019June 24, 2019 Science Connectedcoral reefs, ocean, ocean conservation, ocean sanctuaries, oceans, reef check, reefs, sharks

by Kristin Butler Each year, the Long Beach Scuba Show brings together divers from around the world for seminars and exhibits on all things scuba, with topics ranging from dive gear to scuba vacations. Though the show mostly showcases the business side of diving, visitors can also learn about nonprofits that use diving to fight cancer, promote ocean conservation, and collect citizen science data. Two of the nonprofits that attended this year’s show in May developed and currently run citizen science projects I wrote about in 2017: Reef Check and…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Help Audubon Protect Threatened Birds

June 14, 2019June 14, 2019 Science Connectedbirding, citizen science, climate change, climate watch, threatened birds, threatened species

Audubon’s Climate Watch Program needs volunteers to help it spot 12 birds threatened by climate change. Are you in? “Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul,” Emily Dickinson wrote. Is there hope for our feathered friends in the era of climate change? Yes, but they need our help. More than 300 North American birds will likely lose over 50 percent of their current geographical range by 2080, according to Audubon’s 2014 Birds and Climate Change Report. This means that the areas with the climate conditions these…

Biology Citizen Science Connected Blog Oceanography

Why Citizen Scientists Study Phytoplankton in Antarctica

June 10, 2019June 9, 2019 Science Connectedantarctica, citizen science, climate change, glaciers, krill, penguins, phytoplankton

By Allison Cusick and Verena Meraldi Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography are working with Antarctic tour operators like Hurtigurten to enable vacationers to serve as citizen scientists with the FjordPhyto citizen science project. Travelers collect samples of phytoplankton from Antarctic fjords in an effort to understand the base of the food web, helping scientists learn how one of the most fertile ocean regions in the world may be changing. Human Impact in Remote Areas You would think that the most remote continent on Earth, Antarctica, would be the least…

Book Reviews Citizen Science Connected Blog

Changing Methods of Science Communication Online

May 31, 2019May 30, 2019 Science Connectedbook reviews, citizen science, SciComm, science communication, trans-scientific

by Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher Science Communication Online: A New Book Exploring How We Do and Share Science On the Internet. Free access! An open access copy under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license is also available from The Ohio State University Press, and you can download a copy here: https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/87159 —or, you may purchase the book from the press or most major book retailers. When we discuss science communication, we often talk about it as either targeted at professional scientists or as targeted at the public. However, with the…

Citizen Science Connected Blog

Alzheimer’s research furthered with citizen science games

May 24, 2019May 22, 2019 Science ConnectedAI, Alzheimer’s disease, citizen science, data science, dementia, disease research, stallcatchers

A team of researchers at the Human Computation Institute and Cornell University seek to understand what causes a 30% reduction of blood flow to the brain in Alzheimer’s patients. Preliminary findings from the Schaffer-Nishimura Biomedical Engineering Lab suggest that restoring blood flow to the brain could delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and restore cognitive functioning. But there is too much data to sift through, and the blood flow imagery is too subtle for most algorithms to classify into capillaries that are either flowing or stalled. So instead, citizen scientists are…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog Environment Health

Empowering Communities to Examine Lead Exposure with Crowd the Tap

May 17, 2019May 23, 2019 Science Connectedcommunity health, drinking water, lead pollution, water, water pollution

By Bradley Allf Lead pipes for transporting water have been a fixture of modern civilization for more than two thousand years. Ancient Romans channeled water into homes and bathhouses through lead piping. In fact, the Latin word for lead, plumbum, is where we get the English word “plumbing.” Yet we have also long recognized that lead can have a serious impact on our health. Vitrivius, who lived during the first century BCE, wrote at length about the physical harm caused by lead exposure, concluding that “water should therefore on no…

Citizen Science Citizen Science Connected Blog

Sound Around Town Uses Data to Combat Noise Pollution

May 10, 2019May 12, 2019 Science Connectedcitizen science, health, noise pollution, pollution, public health, urban

By Bradley Allf At the start of World War I, thousands of soldiers were coming down with a baffling condition: they became blind, deaf, lost their memory, or developed uncontrollable shaking despite no obvious physical injury. Even stranger, this malady could be triggered by memories of the war even after the fighting had ended. At the time, doctors called what they were seeing “shell-shock,” though today we would call it by a different name: post-traumatic stress disorder. Anything that brought back memories of the trenches could precipitate this condition, but…