Equipped with smartphones, computers and do-it-yourself sampling kits, lay volunteers are tweeting about snowfall, questing for comets and measuring the microbes in their guts. They are part of a growing group of'citizen scientists', networks of non-scientists who help to analyse or collect data as part of a researcher-led project. They learn about science and get a chance to participate, but the scientists involved stand to gain too. "There is huge amount of spare attention out there and a huge desire to do something real with it," says Christopher Lintott, an astronomer at the University of Oxford, UK, and chair of the Citizen Science Alliance, which hosts projects and advises researchers.
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