Category: Gaming

Fables are fun ways to accept insights into our own lives. Fairy tales are enjoyable ways to inspire hope. Augmented reality games that overlay fantasy directly onto reality are a blast, plus they create a powerful lens to understand ourselves and the world. Citizen science is a lens on the world too. The intersection of […]

by Jennifer Cutraro By now, you’ve surely seen, heard about, or even joined the hordes of people wandering about outdoors,  phones held right in front of their faces. In the two weeks since Pokémon Go’s release, there’s been much ado about the game: how it gets people outdoors, how it promotes physical activity, how it’s […]

Individuals diagnosed with muscle-invasive bladder cancer face a difficult treatment decision – intensive radiotherapy or complete surgical removal of their bladder. Each option has benefits and draw backs, and there are limited data available to patients and physicians to help predict which treatment might provide the best outcome. Dr. Anne Kiltie, Associate Professor of Radiation […]

Photo: John Ohab 12 Days of Christmas The holiday season is upon us! In the spirit of the season, we’ve put together another edition of our ever popular annual 12 Days of Christmas Newsletter. Cheers! The SciStarter Team On the 1st Day of Christmas, Treezilla gave to me: A measuring tape around a pear tree, […]

With our ever-increasing connectivity and reliance on the internet, cybersecurity is a growing concern. Despite all the cautionary warnings about cyber safety, individuals, companies and government agencies still fall victim to attack. So what does it take to stay safe? NOVA, in partnership with computer scientists and cybersecurity experts, created the Cybersecurity Lab, a digital […]

Citizen science makes serious contributions to our understanding of the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun doing it! Here are five projects that combine science and gameplay to create an exciting experience for everyone. Cheers! The SciStarter Team

VerbCorner invites citizen scientists to answer fun questions about words and their meanings to eventually help train computers to understand language. SciStarter is shuffling science into the language department. Explore the science of words with these citizen science projects! Verb. Noun. Pronoun. Adjective. Adverb. Preposition. Conjunction. Interjection… If you’re anything like me, the sight of […]

In a technologically savvy, hyper-caffeinated, on-the-go society, it can be nearly impossible to ignore distracting information. With flashing lights to deafening sounds, even our smartphones demand attention. How does the mind sort through these conflicting signals, allowing us to concentrate and process only the most important visual cues? Ignore That! was developed by Dr. Joshua […]

It’s likely you never expected to aid cutting edge cancer research by playing computer games, but the makers of NanoDoc are asking citizen scientists to do just that.   By designing nanoparticles – tiny clusters that are made up of only tens to thousands of atoms – and running simulations of how they interact in the […]

Pictures, puzzles, and play. Citizen Sort is a collection of interactive games in which players sort and classify photos of unidentified animals. The project is the brain child of researchers at Syracuse University School of Information. The goal is to enable scientists to use pictures of wildlife from the web to help them study changes […]