Hello, Ecolog! This is just an FYI that #SciFund, the largest Science Crowdfunding project on the internet, has launched its second round at http://scifund.rockethub.com. Last time, we raised $76K for science. This time, with 75 scientists, we've already hit $25K by day 2, and it's just going up.
So, I'm not emailing this listserv to ask people to go and donate. Although, if you're inclined, great. But what we'd be even more interested in is if you would send this information out to friends, students, etc., who would be interested in learning more about some of the great Science being done by #SciFund participants. The goal behind #SciFund is to give scientists an incentive to get out there and begin to couple outreach to the earliest stages of their research programs. We ask that participants create videos about their research, and encourage them to create rewards for donations that will make them involve the general public with their work on into the future. This time around we have some wonderful ecological project videos (some of them might even be worth using in classes) of people communicating their research. Here are a few great Ecological examples Does tagging influence Fur Seals? http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7458-as-the-fur-flies-tracking-fur-seals Resurrection Ecology & Daphnia Research: http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7465-resurrection-ecology How do invasive species effects cascade to affect chili peppers in Guam? http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7544-snakes-birds-and-disappearing-chile-peppers Differences in Body Size & Biogeography in Goliath Crabs http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7449-beach-of-the-goliath-crabs Weeds of the Wasted West http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7560-weeds-of-the-wasted-west Climate Change & Castrating Barnacles http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7476-a-climate-for-castrators Amazonian Forest Fire http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7446-amazon-on-fire-which-species-will-thrive Remote Webcam Tracking of Penguin Populations http://www.rockethub.com/projects/7548-a-satellite-webcam-for-penguins And these are just a few of the Ecological projects in this round. For more projects and videos, check out http://www.rockethub.com/projects/scifund or browse the categories of projects at http://scifundchallenge.org/scifund-projects/ If you're interested in science crowdfunding in general, check out this great post by Zen Faulkes http://neurodojo.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-crowdfunding-is-needed-precis.html and our blog at http://scifundchallenge.org/blog/ which also has a statistical analysis of some results from round 1. Thanks, and, please, spread the word! -Jarrett ---------------------------------------- Jarrett Byrnes Postdoctoral Fellow National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis 735 State Street, Suite 300 Santa Barbara, CA 93101 http://jarrettbyrnes.info b: http://imachordata.com t: @jebyrnes g+: http://gplos.to/jebyrnes
