Do It Yourself Biology Research

One of the neat things about people who are making the effort to educate themselves and the availability of information is that there is a resurgence in the citizen scientist.

Not long ago a 14 year old girl discovered a supernova in another galaxy. Caroline Moore is the youngest person to date to do so. She did it with a small telescope.

Biology is now gaining a foothold among homebrew scientists. The site DIYbio is a meeting place for people that are working in their garage to experiment with alternative applications for various bacteria and viruses. From the site:

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DIYbio is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety. This will require mechanisms for amateurs to increase their knowledge and skills, access to a community of experts, the development of a code of ethics, responsible oversight, and leadership on issues that are unique to doing biology outside of traditional professional settings.
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Because they use homebrew technology and no research funding, they are more open about what they're doing and don't necessarily have biases that money from pharma companies or the school's interests introduce. They're doing some really neat stuff for everything from cheaply mapping your DNA to creating microbes that can complete simple logic operations.

If you have any interest in biology...molecular engineering, playing with DNA, making peas that taste like squash, I don't know...head to their site and sign up on their mailing list. They're playing with some really neat stuff and hey, who knows? Maybe the next big advance in fighting cancer or creating a wonder drug will come from one of their member's basements. Or the back of my fridge.