People are driving forward the frontiers of knowledge

Muscat: People from all walks of life and professions are involved in science projects or global scientific initiatives.
In fact, they are not just getting involved, they are making valuable contributions and helping drive forward the frontiers of knowledge.
“At our upcoming Science Café, scheduled to be held today at the crepe café, we’ll be investigating how the general public can get involved in scientific projects and play their part in local research,” said Dr. Nadiya Al Saady, Oman Animal and Plant Genetic Resources Centre’s (OAPGRC) Executive Director and organiser of the popular Science Café initiative.
According to Dr. Al Saady, citizen science is currently booming around the world. As research funding dries up, and technology makes cataloguing and tracking everything easier the general public is increasingly filling the data collection void.
Citizen science means different things to different people. “At its broadest, we can see it as any activity where the public is actively involved in producing knowledge. The most famous example is probably Galaxy Zoo, which used an army of more than 100,000 volunteers to analyse pictures of distant galaxies,” explained OAPGRC’s Executive Director.
Dr. Al Saady added: “I believe people really respond to the idea of making a contribution and doing something for the greater good. They’re realising their contribution has value to the local scientific community. Indeed, today’s smartphones and webcams make it so much easier for people to collect important research data on plants, animals and marine life with time stamps, location and metadata.We want to harness that enthusiasm and interest to the benefit of Oman’s biodiversity.”
The upcoming Science Café will be looking at websites that let Oman’s public join in the work of the scientific community from the comfort of their living room.
“We’ll also be hearing about the Majan Hiking Team, residents of Salalah who became citizen scientists and played an essential part in one of our most important research projects – one that identified a brand new species of mushroom, a discovery that has big business potential. And we’ll see how Tajmee, OAPGRC’s newly launched biodiversity App can instantly turn you into a contributor to our work to preserve and conserve Oman’s biodiversity,” explained Dr. Al Saady.
OAPGRC’s Executive Director said: “Today’s citizen scientists have more tools at their disposal to share the knowledge, and we have some big environmental, climate and genetic resource challenges that require our immediate attention for which we need all the help we can get.”