Evolved Science: Crowds Can Catalog Bugs Faster

The next evolution of science is not happening in a lab, but in a basement in a rural Florida county. Thanks to online crowdsourcing, thousands of non-scientists can visit a site called Notes From Nature and lend a hand to university researchers cataloging their collections, from bark to bugs. Non-scientists help university researchers catalog thousands of specimens, like this one from Florida State University’s herbarium. Bill Stinson, one of those non-scientists, sits at his PC, looking at a picture of a plant he found on Notes From Nature. Stinson’s task is to parse the information on an index card associated with each record and then enter the data into nine fields. Read more.