Today, citizen science is a widely discussed movement in biology. Headlines regularly report news of community residents monitoring bacteria in a local pond or playing protein-folding video games in their living rooms—all in support of rigorous scientific research. A small, but growing, number of community laboratories now offer equipment, space, and safety training to support the biocurious. Do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) has become so trendy that the predominant response to breakthrough genetic studies of the H5N1 avian influenza virus was fear that the information, if published, could be used maliciously by bioterrorists or by amateurs not following proper safely protocols.
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