Hugh Bollinger / Thursday, August 4, 2011

Crowdsourcing for science

Crowdsourcing is most often associated with using social media tools as a means of quickly bringing people together people on a specific topic or issue. The recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the middle east are examples of the power of crowdsourcing. It isn't a surprise that the same approach might not be helpful to scientific investigations and creative research as well. One obvious example of scientific crowdsourcing is the SETI Institute that is trying to decipher signals from outer space for potential extraterrestrial, intelligent life. SETI publishes their radio-telescope data online and asks the public to help the Institute in pattern analyses. Another fascinating example comes from ancient history, myth, and archeology in the effort try and locate the tomb of Genghis Khan, the legendary Mongolian leader who conquered nearly one-third of the world on horseback in the 13th Century. [caption id="attachment_6203" align="aligncenter" width="470" caption="Genghis Khan painting (source: file image)"]

[/caption] Albert Lin-- one of the young explorers for the National Geographic Society --from UC San Diego is using a host of advanced and non-invasive archeological technologies including satellite imagery, ground probing radar, and a multi-media 3D data visualization system called Star Cave to help locate the Mongol tomb, if it exists. The public is invited to help his research particularly in reviewing Lin's detailed satellite images to see if any anomalies seen in the Mongolian landscapes might be a potential site for a hidden tomb. As Lin says: “It’s all about using technologies in ways they weren’t originally intended. We can apply tools that were created for entirely different fields to search for something else—in my case, archaeological artifacts.” In my opinion, this is what creativity and scientific curiosity is all about and amazing discoveries can happen. If Lin does find Genghis Khan's tomb, maybe he'll be able to look inside to find out what is in there without even lifting a shovel. WHB

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Tags: Albert Lin archeology crowdsourcing Genghis Khan National Geographic Society remote sensing UC San Diego young explorers

Crowdsourcing for science

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