butterfly/kb
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Actions Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Scrape wikipedia-science: 838 new, 932 updated, 1819 total (kb-cron)

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
turtle89431 2026-05-04 21:15:00 -07:00
parent b98289d66d
commit a764709e9c
13 changed files with 518 additions and 0 deletions
Show Stats Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

BIN
_index.db
View File

Binary file not shown.

65
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanny's_Voorwerp-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
---
title: "Hanny's Voorwerp"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanny's_Voorwerp"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:46.836435+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
Hanny's Voorwerp (Dutch for Hanny's object) is an instance of an astronomical phenomenon called a quasar ionization echo. It was discovered in 2007 by Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel while she was participating as a volunteer in the Galaxy Zoo project, part of the Zooniverse group of citizen science websites. Photographically, it appears as a bright blob close to spiral galaxy IC 2497 in the constellation Leo Minor.
== Description ==
Hanny's Voorwerp (HsV) is about the size of a small galaxy and has a central hole over 16,000 light years across. In an image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, HsV is colored green, a standard false color that is used to represent the presence of several luminous emission lines of glowing oxygen. HsV has been shown to be at the same distance from Earth as the adjacent galaxy IC 2497, which is about 650 million light-years away.
Star birth is occurring in the region of HsV that faces IC 2497. Radio observations indicate that this is due to an outflow of gas from IC 2497's core which is interacting with a small region of HsV to collapse and form stars. The youngest of these stars are several million years old.
A 40-page comic and associated promotional offers about HsV and the story surrounding it were presented at the 24th Dragon Con in Atlanta on 3 September 2010, as well as first pictures of HsV from the Hubble Space Telescope. The launch was streamed live on UStream.
== Hypotheses ==
One hypothesis suggests that HsV consists of remnants of a small galaxy showing the impact of radiation from a bright quasar event that occurred in the center of IC 2497 about 100,000 years before how it is observed today. The quasar event is thought to have stimulated the bright emission that characterizes HsV. The quasar might have switched off in the last 200,000 years and is not visible in the available images. This might well be due to a process known as AGN feedback.
One possible explanation for the missing light-source is that illumination from the assumed quasar was a transient phenomenon. In this case, its effects on HsV would be still visible because of the distance of several tens of thousands of light years between HsV and the quasar in the nearby galaxy: HsV would show a "light echo" or "ghost image" of events that are older than those currently seen in the galaxy.
On 17 June 2010, a group of researchers at the European VLBI Network (EVN) and the UK's Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN), proposed another related explanation. They hypothesized that the light comes from two sources: (1) a supermassive black hole at the center of IC 2497, and (2) light produced by an interaction of an energetic jet from the black hole and the gas surrounding IC 2497.
== Voorwerpjes ==
In February 2012, W. C. Keel and others published a paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. As a result of the interest in similar ionized clouds for the study of both the history and obscuration of Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), participants in the Galaxy Zoo (GZ) project carried out a wide search for such clouds using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This search yielded a list of 19 galaxies with AGN-photoionized clouds detected to beyond 10 kiloparsecs from the nuclei. These were nicknamed 'Voorwerpjes' from the Dutch for 'small objects'.
In August 2013, F. Schweizer and others published a paper in the Astrophysical Journal. This reports the finding of a Voorwerpje on the outskirts of the well-studied NGC 7252.
In May 2015, W.C. Keel and others published a study in the Astrophysical Journal. This studies 8 of the original 19 Voorwerpjes in greater detail, focusing on "the host-galaxy properties and origin of the gas". Among the telescopes used was the 6 meter BTA-6 at the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science.
In February 2018, Treister et al. studied the galaxy Mrk 463 with VLT/MUSE, VLT/Sinfoni and ALMA. This study found extended emissions around this galaxy and that the supermassive black hole accretion rate on the Mrk 463E nucleus changed by a factor 3–20 in the last 40,000 years, similar to other Voorwerpje galaxies. Galaxy zoo volunteers did identify this galaxy as a candidate Voorwerpje, but the [O III] emission was already described by earlier studies.
In March 2018, Lansbury et al. studied the Teacup Galaxy, also known as the Teacup AGN or SDSS J1430+1339 in x-rays with Swift and Chandra. The extended clouds around the Teacup AGN consist of an "eastern bubble", seen in optical images, and a "western bubble", only seen in radio images by the Very Large Array. The Chandra observations revealed a loop in x-ray emission, consistent with the "eastern bubble". The Chandra data also show evidence for hotter gas within the bubble, which may imply that a wind of material is blowing away from the black hole. Such a wind, which was driven by radiation from the quasar, may have created the bubbles found in the Teacup. The observations in x-rays revealed a powerful, highly obscured active galactic nucleus. This new result suggests that the AGN might not require fading. The quasar has dimmed by only a factor of 25 or less over the past 100,000 years.
In March 2019, Keel et al. studied AGN photoionization of gas in galaxy pairs. The study found UGC 6081 as a candidate Voorwerpje, using data from the 2.5-meter telescope of the Caucasus Mountain Observatory. The emission extends 18 kpc from both AGN.
=== Gallery ===
== Extended X-ray emission in IC 2497 ==
In April 2016, a study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society using data gathered by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in January 2012. The study found extended soft X-ray emission in IC 2497 which suggested the presence of a bubble or cavity surrounding the AGN. The authors hypothesize that this could be due to the bubble being inflated by the AGN, or by a past luminous quasar.
== See also ==
Green bean galaxy
Pea galaxy
Teacup galaxy
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Nielsen, Michael (2012). Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14890-8.
Lintott, Chris; May, Brian; Moore, Patrick (2012). The Cosmic Tourist. Carlton Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-84732-619-5.
North, Chris; Moore, Patrick (2012). The Sky at Night. BBC Books. ISBN 978-1-84990-346-2.
Maran, Stephen P. (2013). Astronomy for dummies (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-37697-3.
Agarwal, Nitin; Lim, Merlyna; Wigand, Rolf T. (2013). Online Collective Action: Dynamics of the Crowd in Social Media. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. Springer. ISBN 978-3-7091-1339-4.
Kuchner, Marc J. (2012). Marketing for Scientists. Island Press. ISBN 978-1-59726-994-0.
Seeds, Michael A. Seeds; Backman, Dana E. (2011). Foundations of Astronomy (11th International ed.). Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-538-73353-3.
== External links ==
The history of the discovery on Hanny van Arkel's personal website
Hubble Space Telescope Delivers Images of Ethereal Green 'Phantoms' "Voorwerps" discussion at Motherboard, April 5, 2015

31
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HerpMapper-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
---
title: "HerpMapper"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HerpMapper"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:47.975310+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
HerpMapper is a cooperative citizen science project designed to gather and share information about reptile and amphibian (herp) observations across the planet. Contributors create records of their herp observations online or via its mobile application. Data are available to HerpMapper Partners – groups who use your recorded observations for research, conservation, and preservation purposes. In addition, the HerpMapper mobile application is used by multiple other herpetological atlas projects, and the Minnesota Nongame Wildlife Program.
HerpMapper's primary goal is to share data with professional conservation and research organizations to better conserve herpetofauna around the world. Because of this, HerpMapper does not share point-location information publicly because of over-collection and poaching concerns. This sets HerpMapper apart from many other citizen-science projects.
== History ==
HerpMapper.org was officially launched in September 2013. It is currently a volunteer-run organization of professional herpetologists, IT specialists, and field herpers with decades of experience. HerpMapper is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
== Organizational structure ==
The HerpMapper Advisory Team includes nonprofit organization staff, state agency biologists, university faculty, IT professionals, and field herpers.
== Data Access ==
Data are made freely available to professional conservation and research organizations. Data are made available via real-time online access or via one-time data transfers.
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website

33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INaturalist-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
---
title: "INaturalist"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INaturalist"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:49.208201+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
iNaturalist is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its website or from its mobile applications. iNaturalist includes an automated species identification tool, and users further assist each other in identifying organisms from photographs and sound recordings. As of 5 August 2025, iNaturalist users had contributed nearly 300 million observations of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms worldwide, and 400,000 users were active in the previous 30 days.
iNaturalist serves as an important resource of open data for biodiversity research, conservation, and education, describing itself as "an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature." It is the primary application for crowd-sourced biodiversity data in places such as Mexico, southern Africa, and Australia, and the project has been called "a standard-bearer for natural history mobile applications." Most of iNaturalist's software is open source. It has contributed to over 4,000 research papers and is widely used by scientists, land managers, and conservationists worldwide. The platform has also been active in the discovery of new species and rediscovery of species previously assumed to be extinct.
== History ==
iNaturalist began in 2008 as a UC Berkeley School of Information Master's final project of Nate Agrin, Jessica Kline, and Ken-ichi Ueda. Agrin and Ueda continued work on the site with Sean McGregor, a web developer. In 2011, Ueda began collaboration with Scott Loarie, a research fellow at Stanford University and lecturer at UC Berkeley. Ueda and Loarie are the current co-directors of iNaturalist.org. The organization merged with the California Academy of Sciences on 24 April 2014. In 2017, iNaturalist became a joint initiative between the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.
With these collaborations and growing popularity of the site since 2012, the number of participants and observations has roughly doubled each year. In 2014, iNaturalist reached 1 million observations. Later, as of October 2023, there were 181 million observations (163 million verifiable). On 11 July 2023 iNaturalist announced its status as a newly independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
On 9 June 2025 Google announced that iNaturalist would be part of its "Generative AI Accelerator". This announcement, paired with the initial lack of information on the iNaturalist site, led to outcry from many iNaturalist users in the blog comments and forum, worrying about the consequences for the environment, volunteer engagement, reliability and raised questions about the decision making within iNaturalist, while some saw the backlash as a sign that people want to resist 'corrosive technologies'. PZ Myers, a biology professor who uses iNaturalist in his teaching, published an article on his website Pharyngula stating that "any decision that drives people away and replaces them with a hallucinating bot is a bad decision".
== Platforms ==
Users can interact with iNaturalist in the following ways:
through the iNaturalist.org website,
through two mobile apps: iNaturalist (iOS/Android) and Seek by iNaturalist (iOS/Android), or
through partner organizations such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) website.
On the iNaturalist.org website, visitors can search the public dataset and interact with other people adding observations and identifications. The website provides tools for registered users to add, identify, and discuss observations, write journal posts, explore information about species, create project pages to recruit participation, and coordinate work on their topics of interest.
On the iNaturalist mobile app, users can create and share nature observations to the online dataset, explore observations both nearby and around the world, and learn about different species.
Seek by iNaturalist, a separate app marketed to families, requires no online account registration and all observations may remain private. Seek incorporates features of gamification, such as providing a list of nearby organisms to find and encouraging the collection of badges and participation in challenges. Seek was initially released in the spring of 2018.
== Observations ==
The iNaturalist platform is based on crowdsourcing of observations and identifications. An iNaturalist observation records a person's encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and place. An iNaturalist observation may also record evidence of an organism, such as animal tracks, nests, or scat. The scope of iNaturalist excludes natural but inert subjects such as geologic or hydrologic features. Users typically upload photos as evidence of their findings, though audio recordings are also accepted, and such evidence is not a strict requirement. Users may share observation locations publicly, "obscure" them to display a less precise location or make the locations completely private.
iNaturalist users can add identifications to each other's observations in order to confirm or improve the identification of the observation. Observations are classified as "Casual", "Needs ID" (needs identification), or "Research Grade" based on the quality of the data provided and the community identification process. Any quality of data can be downloaded from iNaturalist and "Research Grade" observations are often incorporated into other online databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Atlas of Living Australia.

29
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INaturalist-1.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
---
title: "INaturalist"
chunk: 2/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INaturalist"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:49.208201+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
=== Automated species identification ===
In addition to observations being identified by others in the community, iNaturalist includes an automated species identification tool, first released in 2017. Images can be identified via a computer vision model which has been trained on the large database of the observations on iNaturalist. Multiple species suggestions are typically provided with the suggestion that the software guesses to be most likely is at the top of the list. A broader taxon such as a genus or family is commonly provided if the model is unsure of the species. It is trained once or twice a year, and the threshold for species included in the training set has changed over time. It can be difficult for the model to guess correctly if the species in question is infrequently observed or hard to identify from images alone, or if the image submitted has poor lighting, is blurry, or contains multiple subjects.
In February 2023, iNaturalist released v2.1 of its computer vision model, which was trained on a new source model which performed significantly better than the previous models trained using a different source model. In April 2025 iNaturalist released an updated app for iOS, changing the original version to "iNaturalist Classic."
== Projects ==
Users have created and contributed to tens of thousands of different projects on iNaturalist. The platform is commonly used to record observations during bioblitzes, which are biological surveying events that attempt to record all the species that occur within a designated area, and a specific project type on iNaturalist. Other project types include collections of observations by location or taxon or documenting specific types of observations such as animal tracks and signs, the spread of invasive species, roadkill, fishing catches, or discovering new species. In 2011, iNaturalist was used as a platform to power the Global Amphibian and Global Reptile BioBlitzes, in which observations were used to help monitor the occurrence and distribution of the world's reptiles and amphibian species. The US National Park Service partnered with iNaturalist to record observations from the 2016 National Parks BioBlitz. That project exceeded 100,000 observations in August 2016. In 2017, the United Nations Environment Programme teamed up with iNaturalist to celebrate World Environment Day.. In 2022, Reef Ecologic teamed up with iNaturalist to celebrate World Oceans Day.
=== City Nature Challenge ===
In 2016, Lila Higgins from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and Alison Young from the California Academy of Sciences co-founded the City Nature Challenge (CNC). In the first City Nature Challenge, naturalists in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area documented over 20,000 observations with the iNaturalist platform. In 2017, the CNC expanded to 16 cities across the United States and collected over 125,000 observations of wildlife in 5 days. The CNC expanded to a global audience in 2018, with 68 cities participating from 19 countries, with some cities using community science platforms other than iNaturalist to participate. In 4 days, over 17,000 people cataloged over 440,000 nature observations in urban regions around the world. In 2019, the CNC once again expanded, with 35,000 participants in 159 cities collecting 964,000 observations of over 31,000 species. Although fewer observations were documented during the 2020 City Nature Challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic (when the CNC became collaborative as opposed to competitive), more cities and people participated, and more species were found than in previous years.
== Licensing ==
Users have the option to license their observations, photos, and audio recordings in several ways, including for the public domain, Creative Commons, or with all rights reserved. To encourage the sharing of information and to reduce costs, iNaturalist encourages users to license media with Creative Commons licenses. The default license is CC BY-NC, meaning others are free to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the media as long as appropriate credit is given, changes are indicated, a link to the license is provided, and it is not used for commercial purposes.
Observations and media licensed with Creative Commons licenses are often shared elsewhere, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (excluding share-alike and no derivatives licenses), Atlas of Living Australia, and Wikipedia (excluding noncommercial and no derivatives licenses) through regular imports or user scripts such as iNaturalist2Commons and Wiki Loves iNaturalist.
The iNaturalist website and mobile apps are open-source software released under the MIT License.
== Research ==
As of January 2024, more than 4,000 research papers have been published that cite the iNaturalist research-grade observations hosted on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), often in the fields of ecology, conservation, and climate change. Many articles focus on climate-driven range shifts and expansions. For example:

45
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INaturalist-2.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
---
title: "INaturalist"
chunk: 3/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INaturalist"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:49.208201+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
In 2015, data from iNaturalist was used to show that the Hopkin's rose nudibranch (Ceratodoris rosacea) is moving northward.
Photos uploaded to iNaturalist in 2022 were used to confirm that the New Zealand hermit crab (Pagurus traversi) had been sighted in Tasmania and Victoria, Australia.
In February 2024, photos posted on iNaturalist were used to report on the use of artificial shells (primarily plastic caps) by hermit crabs
In April 2024, iNaturalist data was used to show that the range of Himalayan giant honey bees (Apis laboriosa) had expanded southward to Thailand for the first time.
iNaturalist data has also been used to investigate phenology, the study of how life changes with the seasons.
A 2023 field study comparing iNaturalist lichen records with expert identifications in Portugal and Italy found that fewer than half of the species logged by platform users matched the specialists' determinations, and roughly 70 % of species-level identifications that appeared only on iNaturalist were wrong. The authors concluded that unchecked observations—especially of taxonomically difficult groups such as lichens—should be treated with caution when used for research, and they recommended raising the agreement threshold for "research-grade" status and providing clear imaging guidelines to volunteers. In a 2024 review of Red List practice for lichenized fungi, the authors cautioned that iNaturalist records are often difficult to verify from photographs alone and therefore should usually be excluded from lichen conservation assessments unless the species can be identified confidently from images or the observation has been expert-verified.
=== Discovery and rediscovery ===
Other published research focuses on the description of new species or rediscovery of species previously considered extinct. For example:
A species of snail, Myxostoma petiverianum, not documented since 1905, was rediscovered in Vietnam based on a photo taken in 2014 and uploaded to iNaturalist.
In 2013, a citizen scientist in Colombia uploaded a photo of a poison dart frog, which researchers determined was a previously unrecognized species now known as Andinobates cassidyhornae.
In 2023, a species of mantis first discovered with the aid of iNaturalist was named Inimia nat so that its abbreviated form, I. nat, would be a word play that pays homage to iNaturalist.
The first-ever wild-specimen photograph of the New Britain goshawk was posted to iNaturalist in March 2024. The Colombian weasel, the rarest neotropical carnivore, was seen for the first time in the 21st century when an iNaturalist user uploaded snapshots of the weasel exploring a privy.
Two teenagers in California used iNaturalist observations of unfamiliar scorpions as the first step in their eventual description of two new species (Paruroctonus soda and Paruroctonus conclusus).
The frosted phoenix moth of New Zealand, feared extinct, was "rediscovered" when a Swedish birder who was in town to see kiwi put up a light to attract moths and snapped a casual photo of an insect that had parked itself under a lawn chair on his hotel balcony; his upload to iNaturalist was the first time the moth had been seen alive in 65 years.
A commuter in London uploaded an observation of an insect on her bag to iNaturalist, which allowed it to be identified as a plane lace bug, Corythucha ciliata. This was the first recorded observation of the invasive species in the United Kingdom in about 18 years, and the observation sparked a national monitoring campaign to determine the spread of the insect in the country.
In December 2024, a new population of critically endangered Canterbury knobbled weevils (Hadramphus tuberculatus) was discovered after a farmer in Ashurton Lakes, New Zealand posted a picture of weevils he had discovered on a speargrass plant. The weevils were previously known only to live in one other location about 80 km (50 mi) away, and the population in that location was considered to be critically low.
A presumed extinct Australian plant species, Ptilotus senarius, was resurrected to extant and rare status based on an observation uploaded to iNaturalist in June 2025.
=== Morphology ===
Other research has focused on the morphology or coloration of species observations. For example, a study in 2019 assessed the relationship between wing coloration and temperature in the dragonfly species Pachydiplax longipennis.
=== DNA barcoding ===
Mycologists running community-managed high-throughput fungal DNA barcoding labs published 45,000 DNA sequences between 2016 and 2023, many via iNaturalist, which allows for association of specimen photographs and geolocations with DNA sequences. Using iNat "engages experts within the community. This facilitates open peer review and public feedback among professional and amateur mycologists." As of December 2025, there were more than 7,600 fungi species on iNat with associated DNA barcodes. In December 2025, iNaturalist launched a "provisional name" field on a pilot basis, allowing expert contributors to tag DNA-barcoded fungi observations of what are likely new species that have not yet been formally described and named with a staff-created standardized temporary species name such as Calonarius sp. 'CA03'. (Identifications of formally undescribed plant galls, sans DNA, are currently associated in a similar way, with superficially fuzzy galls appearing on chestnut oak leaves, for instance, being tagged by a unified, externally defined name like q-montana-fuzzy-sphere-cluster.)
== Graphs ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website

94
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISpot-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
---
title: "ISpot"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISpot"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:52.356702+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
iSpot is a website developed and hosted by the Open University with funding from the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network with an online community intended to connect nature enthusiasts of all levels.
Registered users upload images of wildlife observations, identify species, and discuss their findings with other members. This is intended to provide opportunities to learn more about the wildlife they have observed, and also provides a database of observations which is made available for scientific analysis.
The site also provides some online identification tools.
== Purpose ==
The natural history observational skills required for accurate species identification in the field are neglected in formal education at all levels. iSpot is intended to help solve this problem by combining learning technology with crowdsourcing to connect beginners with experts.
== Communities ==
The communities as of 2015 include the original UK and Ireland, Southern Africa, Hong Kong, Chile (Spanish language) and Global, which covers everywhere else. These communities can link to their own taxonomic lists, or use the default Catalogue of Life list.
In mid 2014 the global iSpot community exceeded 42000 registered participants.
== Function ==
In a 2015 study it was found that over 94% of observations submitted to iSpot are identified to some level, (>80% at species level), and that 92% of a representative sample of the identifications could be externally verified. Most observations were given an initial identification within an hour of posting. Identification is refined as other members review and agree with an existing identification, or propose an alternative. There is no time limit to this process.
=== Database ===
The number of observations uploaded with photographic records exceeds 500 000 as of May 2015.
Observations are classified taxonomically according to the standard chosen by the community. The taxonomic classification follows the standard principles for zoological and botanical classification, with some modifications to make it easier for the lay-person. One such modification is the allocation of taxa to groups.
The groups used on iSpot are:
Amphibians and Reptiles
Birds
Fish
Fungi and Lichens
Invertebrates
Mammals
Other organisms
Plants
Observations are geographically located in decimal degrees to any precision input by the contributor, and where applicable, the position is derived from the Exif of the lead photograph. The location details can also be input and edited manually. The location can be displayed on Google Maps. In some cases where the exact location must be hidden for conservation security, the map will display a rectangle surrounding the actual location. The location is then truncated to two decimal places, and this represents a corner of the rectangle.
=== On-site reputation ===
iSpot uses a unique reputation system to motivate and reward participants and as a tool to grade identifications of observations.
Reputation points specific to one of the eight taxonomic groups used in the project are earned when an identification gets agreement from other participants, The value of the added points is proportional to the reputation for that group of the persons adding agreements. Exact values of reputation for the groups is not available to the users, but is displayed in the form of icons. Up to five icons may be displayed for any group, the first is awarded for a very small value, and the fifth for a rather large, but not publicly available value. Users with expert knowledge of taxonomy may be allocated an expert level reputation for the whole group in which their expertise is academically verifiable. For example, an expert on spiders would be considered an expert in all invertebrates. A similar but lesser reputation as "knowledgeable" can be allocated to users with informally acquired identification skills. The integration, if any, of earned reputation with allocated reputation is not publicly available.
This system is claimed to discriminate effectively between alternative identifications proposed for the same observation. The reputation system is shown to have improved the accuracy of the determination in 57% of cases studied. In the rest it either improved precision or revealed false precision.
The other form of reputation is proportional to the amount of contribution to the database in the form of observations and comments. These are accumulated as social points, and have no obvious value other than keeping score.
=== Projects ===
iSpot supports projects initiated by registered users and larger organisations, including at one time the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI)
==== SANBI ====
The South African National Biodiversity Institute once chose iSpot as a platform for several citizen science national biodiversity projects. Originally iSpotZA was hosted independently of the main site, with a customised user interface, but at the end of 2014 it was integrated into the main site. Some functionality changed during the integration, but it has mostly been restored. SANBI has since migrated to iNaturalist.
===== SeaKeys =====
SeaKeys is the first large collaborative marine biodiversity project run by SANBI and funded by the Foundational Biodiversity Information Program of the National Research Foundation, which includes several citizen science projects on the iSpot website, such as:
Sea Fish Atlas
Sea Coral Atlas
Sea Slug Atlas
Crustacean Atlas
== Publications ==
=== About iSpot ===
Silvertown, J; Harvey, M; Greenwood, R; Dodd, M; Rosewell, J; Rebelo, T; Ansine, J; McConway, K (2015). "Crowdsourcing the identification of organisms: A case-study of iSpot". ZooKeys (480): 125–146. doi:10.3897/zookeys.480.8803. PMC 4319112. PMID 25685027.
=== Using data from iSpot ===
Bjørnstad, Anders; Grobbelaar, Elizabeth; Perissinotto, Renzo (2016). "Review of Afraustraloderes rassei Bouyer, 2012: description of its female and a new species of Pixodarus Fairmaire, 1887 (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae)". ZooKeys (558): 77–93. doi:10.3897/zookeys.558.6112. PMC 4768281. PMID 27006596.
Carlson, Jane E.; Holsinger, Kent E. (2015). "Extrapolating from local ecological processes to genus-wide patterns in colour polymorphism in South African Protea". Proc. R. Soc. B. 282 (1806) 20150583. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.0583. PMC 4426637. PMID 25876847.
== See also ==
List of citizen science projects
Participatory monitoring
Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science
Open science
Popular science
iNaturalist
== References ==
== External links ==
iSpot home page

46
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_of_Genetic_Genealogy-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
---
title: "International Society of Genetic Genealogy"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_of_Genetic_Genealogy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:51.145742+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
The International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) is an independent non-commercial nonprofit organization of genetic genealogists run by volunteers. It was founded by a group of surname DNA project administrators in 2005 to promote DNA testing for genealogy. It advocates the use of genetics in genealogical research, provides educational resources for genealogists interested in DNA testing, and facilitates networking among genetic genealogists. As of June 2013, it comprises over 8,000 members in 70 countries. As of July 2013, regional meetings are coordinated by 20 volunteer regional coordinators located in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Egypt, Ireland and Russia.
ISOGG hosts the ISOGG Wiki, a free online encyclopedia maintained by ISOGG members which contains a wide variety of educational resources and guidance for genetic genealogy consumers and DNA project administrators. The ISOGG Wiki contains ethical guidelines for DNA project administrators and ISOGG members perform peer reviews of DNA project websites of other members on request, following which the websites may display the ISOGG Peer Reviewed graphic.
== Industry regulation and standards ==
In 2008 ISOGG supported the passing of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act designed to prohibit the improper use of genetic information in health insurance and employment in the United States. At an FDA public meeting on oversight of laboratory developed tests, ISOGG opposed FDA regulations preventing consumer access to DTC testing.
An article published in Genetics in Medicine in March 2012 provides an overview of the diverse array of tests and practices in the emerging DTC genetic genealogy industry. In the article, the authors highlight ISOGG's potential role in developing industry best practice guidelines and consumer guidance: We call on the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) to take a leadership role in (i) articulating an ethical code to guide the practices of the industry it advocates and (ii) developing a consumer guide to provide prospective consumers of the DNA ancestry testing industry with a reliable means to compare products and companies for their varying consumer motivations and interests.
The increasing affordability and popularity of DTC genetic genealogy testing has also raised ethical concerns about genealogists testing the DNA of others without consent. The ISOGG Wiki contains a selection of external resources on ethics for genetic genealogists.
=== Y-STR nomenclature ===
ISOGG promotes the adoption of voluntary industry Y-STR nomenclature standards developed by NIST and published in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy in 2008.
== Citizen science ==
ISOGG members such as Leo Little, Roberta Estes, Rebekah Canada and Bonnie Schrack have been involved in important citizen science discoveries regarding human phylogeny and ethnic origins. The broader ISOGG membership participated in the Genographic Project, a genetic anthropology study that used crowdsourcing to facilitate new discoveries about human genetic history, and other genetic databases where broader and larger databases aid the identification of participants' ancestral origins.
=== Y chromosome phylogenetic tree ===
Since 2006 ISOGG has hosted the regularly updated online ISOGG Y-chromosome phylogenetic tree. ISOGG aims to keep the tree as up-to-date as possible, incorporating new SNPs which are being discovered frequently. The ISOGG tree has been described by academics as using the accepted nomenclature for human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and subclades in that it follows the Y Chromosome Consortium nomenclature as described in Karafet et al. 2008, The ISOGG tree is widely cited in peer reviewed academic literature.
== See also ==
ISOGG Mission Statement
History of genetic genealogy on the ISOGG wiki
== References ==
== External links ==
Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree at ISOGG

32
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Masters-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
---
title: "Karen Masters"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Masters"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:58.317291+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
Karen Masters (born 1979) is an Astrophysicist and Full Professor of Astrophysics in Haverford College, Pennsylvania exploring galaxy formation. She is also the project scientist for the citizen science project Galaxy Zoo, and uses the classifications to study the evolution of galaxies.
== Education ==
Masters was born in Birmingham and attended King Edward VI College, Nuneaton. She completed a BSc in Physics at the University of Oxford in 2000. She received a PhD in Astronomy from Cornell University in 2005, entitled "Galaxy flows in and around the Local Supercluster", under the supervision of Martha Haynes and Riccardo Giovanelli.
== Research ==
In 2005 Masters moved to Harvard University to work as a postdoctoral researcher with John Huchra on a project to make the most complete map of the local Universe. Masters "unveiled the most complete 3-D map of the local universe (out to a distance of 380 million light-years) ever created" in 2011 at the 218th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The map was created using data from the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey.
She moved to the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth in October 2008. She was appointed the Gruber Foundation IAU Fellow in 2008. In 2010 Masters was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, for a project entitled "Do bars kill spiral galaxies?". She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2014 and Associate Professor in 2015. She has been working on extragalactic astronomy, and in 2018 was appointed as Associate Professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.
Masters is the Project Spokesperson for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
== Public engagement ==
Masters coordinates the research scientists for Galaxy Zoo, a crowd-sourced galaxy classification project. She has appeared on the BBC Sky At Night.
She coordinated the She's An Astronomer page for Galaxy Zoo, collating the stories of women from astronomy. In 2014 Masters won the Women of the Future Award for Science. That year she was listed as one of the BBC's top 100 women.
== References ==
== External links ==

35
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_MacDonald-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
---
title: "Liz MacDonald"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_MacDonald"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:55.933639+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
Elizabeth MacDonald is a space physicist who works at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She is a co-investigator on the Helium, Oxygen, Proton, and Electron Spectrometer on the NASA Radiation Belts Storm Probe mission.
== Education ==
Elizabeth MacDonald was born in Walla Walla, Washington, to Bill and Alice MacDonald. MacDonald received a BSc in physics from the University of Washington, funded by a NASA Space Grant scholarship, in 1999. Her mentor, Ruth Skoug, encouraged her to remain in research. MacDonald completed her postgraduate studies at the University of New Hampshire, earning her PhD in physics in 2004.
== Career ==
MacDonald specializes in plasma mass spectrometry, and has expertise in instrument development and data analysis and interpretation.
After completing her PhD, MacDonald joined Los Alamos National Laboratory. At LANL she was the principal investigator for the Z-Plasma Spectrometer on the Department of Energy Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System geosynchronous payload. She also led the Innovative Research and Integrated Sensing team. She was principal investigator for the Advanced Miniaturized Plasma Spectrometer. She received the Los Alamos Awards Program recognition three times.
Between 2009 and 2011 she led the Department of Energy funded Modular Advanced Space Environment Instrumentation. In 2012 she became a New Mexico Consortium-affiliated researcher, working on the prototype for the Aurorasaurus citizen science project. She has served on scientific review panels for the National Science Foundation and Los Alamos National Laboratory grants. Today MacDonald works in the Goddard Space Flight Center.
In 2018 MacDonald and her team announced the discovery of a new aurora called Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). STEVE is farther from the poles than the aurora is typically seen. The European Space Agency Swam A satellite was used to identify that the charged particles in STEVE were around 6000 °C. It was observed by Canadian aurora enthusiasts in 2015. MacDonald attributes the faint purple glow to a subauroral ion drift. MacDonald published the finding in Science Advances. She is working with NASA to crowd source sightings of STEVE.
== Awards and honors ==
In 2018, MacDonald was named as a Walla Walla Public Schools Graduate of Distinction as a "pioneer in citizen science initiatives and mentor for aspiring scientists of all ages".
== Public engagement ==
In 2016 in the journal Space Weather, MacDonald and co-workers reported that "citizen scientists are regularly able to spot auroras farther south of an area where prediction models indicated". MacDonald leads an interdisciplinary citizen science project called Aurorasaurus, which uses social media to predict the Northern Lights during the current solar maximum. To fund the program, she won a $1-million INSPIRE grant from the National Science Foundation together with Andrea Tapia of Pennsylvania State University and Michelle Hall of Science Education Solutions.
After noticing a spike in tweets about an aurora borealis in October 2011, she established Aurorasaurus to track such geolocation information in order to improve forecasting, such as that done by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.
In August 2017, she spoke at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site about the 2017 solar eclipse. MacDonald regularly speaks to high school students and community groups.
== References ==

18
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Ladybug_Project-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
---
title: "Lost Ladybug Project"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Ladybug_Project"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:54.789388+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
The Lost Ladybug Project is a nonprofit organization in the USA focused on promoting citizen science and science education to children. Its mission is "to help children become confident and competent participants in science, identifying personally with science, so that we develop a generation of adults who are engaged in scientific discussions, policy, and thinking."
== History ==
The Lost Ladybug Project was founded in 2000 when researchers from Cornell University worked with the 4-H Master Gardener program to survey ladybug populations across New York. With the discovery of a rare nine-spotted ladybug in 2006, the Lost Ladybug Project developed research methods and a database to log ladybug observations. Granted funding from the National Science Foundation in 2008, the Lost Ladybug Project has counted over 34,000 ladybugs since its inception and is now a nationwide project. Researchers and citizen scientists from across North America submit photographs to the Lost Ladybug Project to help track different ladybug species.
== References ==

59
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medialab_Matadero-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
---
title: "Medialab Matadero"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medialab_Matadero"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:59.635116+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
The Medialab Matadero, formerly known as Medialab Prado, is a cultural space and citizen lab in Madrid (Spain). It was created by the Madrid City Council in 2000, growing since then into a leading center for citizen innovation. It follows a participatory approach, using collective intelligence methods (developed in living labs) and fast prototyping tools such as fab labs, to use and co-create digital commons.
== History ==
The Medialab Matadero started in 2000 as a cultural program of the Madrid City Council within the cultural center Conde Duque. In 2002, it was named "Medialab Madrid", a space focused on the research, production and dissemination of cultural works around society, science, art and digital technologies.
In 2007, it was moved to the basements of the old industrial building Serrería Belga (Belgian Sawmill), and renamed "Medialab-Prado" because of its new location next to the Prado Museum and the Paseo del Prado boulevard. This industrial building was originally built in 1920s and owned by Belgian migrants, and it remained in operation until the 2000 when it was sold to the City Council.
In 2010, it received an honorary award from Prix Ars Electronica.
In 2013, after an extensive refurbishment effort of the Serrería building, the center started using the 4000 m2 and all the floors of the now renovated building. This refurbishment was awarded multiple awards, including the 12th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Town Planning award, the COAM 2013 award and the Sacyr innovation award 2014.
In 2014, the City Council considered renting the building to the Telefónica corporation, in order to host innovation hub initiatives such as Wayra. A manifest signed by a list of renowned names (such as Javier de la Cueva or Antonio Lafuente) supporting the center was published, and eventually the building remained for the sole use of MLP.
In 2016, Medialab-Prado was awarded the Princess Margriet Award by the European Cultural Foundation, for "developing critical spaces of social participation and political experimentation through culture".
In 2021, the Medialab was moved again by the Madrid townhall, from its Serrería Belga location to the Matadero Madrid centre and renamed Medialab Matadero.
== Methods ==
Medialab-Prado stated to follow these methodological principles:
Community and Mediation: it holds a cultural mediation programme with the aim to interconnect users and projects. In order to facilitate it, users may form work groups that are hosted in the space. It also provides an online platform to facilitate interaction and visibility.
Prototyping: the center focuses on experimentation, and on implementing the initial phases of new ideas. To facilitate this, it makes regular open calls for participation in collaborative prototyping workshops.
Free Culture & Commons: it promotes the use of free open source tools, all online content is published under open licenses, and all work groups must open and share their outcomes and processes.
Networks: Medialab-Prado belongs to collaboration networks at both the local and international level, with the aim to share and exchange practices. Locally, it holds workshops concerning different Madrid neighbourhoods, and collaborates with different public institutions. Internationally, it has collaborated in multiple EU-funded projects and with Latin American institutions through the SEGIB Citizen Innovation programme.
== Activities ==
The type of activities are pretty diverse, organized in several lines of work or "labs":
DataLab, Lab on open data, such as hosting The Glass Room by Tactical Tech and Mozilla, or the data visualization workshops Visualizar.
ParticipaLab, Lab on collective intelligence for democratic participation, such as the "Collective Intelligence for Democracy" international call.
InCiLab, Lab of citizen innovation, such as the "Madrid Listens" project, to connect City Hall officials with citizens on specific projects, and other open democracy experiments.
PrototipaLab, Lab of creative prototyping, such as a collaboration with African cultural mediators, urban art interventions, or artist residencies.
CiCiLab, Lab of citizen science, including events on scientific outreach.
AVLab, Lab of audio-video experimentation, such as innovative participatory games, or projecting documentaries on the topic.
In the past, it also hosted a Commons Lab coordinated by Antonio Lafuente although its activities are now included in the other labs.
== International recognition ==
In 2010, it received an honorary award from Prix Ars Electronica. And in 2016, it was awarded the Princess Margriet Award by the European Cultural Foundation, for "developing critical spaces of social participation and political experimentation through culture". It was the first Spanish institution that receives it.
Medialab Matadero has hosted multiple talks of renowned names, including major academics such as Nancy Fraser, Yochai Benkler, or Langdon Winner, or politicians such as EU Commissioner Karmenu Vella. It has also been venue of international events such as Libre Graphics Meeting, the Red Bull Music Academy, the Media Facades Festival Europe, or the Madrid Design Festival.
It was due to one of Medialab Matadero events that the open hardware project Arduino reached international attention. Its Spanish co-founder, David Cuartielles, presented Arduino in the center, where Ars Electronica festival director Gerfried Stoker saw it and invited him to show it at the festival.
Medialab Matadero has been referred by the European Cultural Foundation as "cultural change-makers enacting alternatives in the face of political adversities", and by the UNDP as example of "new spaces [that] are needed for citizens and communities to access [...] digital opportunities". Others claim they "enable the creation of new and highly constructive new communities of concern around difficult topics, as well as building legitimacy for bold experimental approaches", that they are "reinventing mediation patterns" (Phys.org), turning Madrid into "an international reference of the urban commons" (openDemocracy), the most relevant Spanish citizen lab (El Mundo), "emerging institutions at the intersection of art and technology" (TechCrunch).
== See also ==
MIT Media Lab
Aalto Media Lab
== References ==

31
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laufer-0.md Normal file
View File

@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
---
title: "Michael Laufer"
chunk: 1/1
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laufer"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:14:53.619293+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
Michael Swan Laufer (sometimes styled as Mixæl Laufer) is the de facto leader of the open-source anarchist biohacking network, Four Thieves Vinegar Collective. Laufer is notable for creating the EpiPencil, an open source alternative to the Epipen.
== Education ==
Laufer has a Ph.D. in mathematics and physics from the CUNY Graduate Centre.
== Career ==
Laufer was the director of mathematics at Silicon Valley's Menlo College, and a part time teacher of mathematics at San Quentin State Prison, California. Laufer is also a Senior Research Fellow at the UNESCO Crossings Institute.
In 2008 Laufer went to El Salvador where he saw hospitals that had run out of birth control medicine, he founded the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective shortly afterwards.
Laufer publicly shared videos in 2016 that illustrated how to manufacture generic version of the Epi-Pen epinephrine auto-injector from components readily available to the public.
Laufer is working on a DIY controlled lab reactor that he calls the Apothecary MicroLab that will allow people to manufacture their own pharmaceuticals at home. The first version is able to manufacture pyrimethamine, the same drug that in 2016 increased in price in USA from $13 to $750 in 2019. Laufer's work is both about access to medicine and about the right to personal autonomy and information, seeking to undo a trend that has put healthcare decision-making in the control of financially motivated private actors. Laufer believes that providing lifesaving medication to those in need justifies violation of intellectual property rights. He wants to find simple ways to produce emergency contraceptives and common medications for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.
In 2019 Laufer co-created a mesh-network sub-dermal implant that costs less than US$50, allowing humans to internally carry wireless routers. Soon after, he had one implanted in himself.
== See also ==
Jo Zayner
Open Source Medical Supplies
== References ==