Citizen science draws amateurs into scientific research

Harvard Magazine discusses their collaborative science research initiative – “FOLDIT IS PART of a growing trend toward citizen science: enabling ordinary people, often without formal training, to contribute to scientific research in their spare time. The range of involvement varies. Some citizen scientists donate idle time on their home computers for use in solving problems large in scale (the search for intergalactic objects, as in Einstein@home) or small (folding proteins). Other projects encourage participants to contribute small bits of data about themselves or their environments.”

via Citizen science draws amateurs into scientific research | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2014.