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  • NEWS FEATURE

No PhDs needed: how citizen science is transforming research

Projects that recruit the public are getting more ambitious and diverse, but the field faces some growing pains.
  1. Aisling Irwin

    1. Aisling Irwin is a freelance journalist in Oxfordshire, UK.

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A priest smiles at the camera from his Buddhist temple. A small geiger counter is attached to the underside of roof at top left.

Japanese priest Sadamaru Okano stands beneath a Geiger counter (top left) that sends radiation readings to the Safecast project. Credit: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty

Filip Meysman knew he had made his mark on Antwerp when he overheard commuters discussing his research project on the train. Then, just a few days later, he saw an advertisement about his work on television. There it was, he says, “in between the toothpaste and George Clooney’s Nespresso”.

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Nature 562, 480-482 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07106-5

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