Centuries after the British government offered up to £ 20,000 for those who have developed a precise method for determining longitude British cabinetmaker a ship won with his invention of great price-clock precision for scientific or technical achievements are sexy again. The X-Prize Foundation is largely responsible for this renewed interest, thanks to its multi-million dollar price of incentives for radical breakthroughs in areas such as DNA sequencing and human spaceflight. US government agencies, however, are also getting in on the act. NASA and the Department of Defense, for example, have launched several prices to stimulate progress in research or to perform technical objectives. But what about Premier America funder of biomedical research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)?
NIH has so far sat on the bench the game price, but there are clues that could soon change. Yesterday, in Bethesda, Maryland, NIH campus, several parts of the body held a meeting, Crowdsourcing: The Art and Science of Open Innovation, in which various government and private organizations that provide research prices described their success, prompting speculation over whether NIH do the same. And James Anderson, NIH Director for the Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, said in his closing speech to the audience that the NIH Director Francis Collins was about to sign documents that would permit ensure NIH meets the America COMPETES Act, which gives federal agencies the authority to provide financial incentives for researchers to address high-risk, high-reward to research questions that escaped platforms more traditional funding, such as grants and sponsored research. Yet Anderson declined to say how long it might be until NIH begins offering such prices. "We ask people to be patient," Anderson said. "But we are making progress."
The America COMPETES law was passed in 07 and was reauthorized in December. Under his leadership, federal agencies describe a problem they would like solved on Challenge.gov, then open the competition to individuals or teams, evaluate results, and the awarding of the prize money to those who turn in the best solution. Offering price has several advantages over the grant or sponsorship search said Dwayne Spradlin, president of InnoCentive, an online platform that hosts as Challenge.gov research competitions. Funders get lots of fresh eyes to the problem for less money than it usually costs to provide a subsidy. " Distribute the risk and accelerate research and development in the process, "said Spradlin.
incentives search was just a theme to the crowdsourcing conference, which also explored other ways scientists and scientific organizations could take advantage of the processing power of lots of loans brains. guru Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media explained how patient-centered Web sites such as PatientsLikeMe.com collect massive amounts of data on patient symptoms, environments, lifestyles, and states emotional. Although the data are not collected from standard scientific way, he said, scientists have yet to adopt such a massive amount of information and mine for new ideas. "We are building a global brain that exists on the Internet," he said.
Adrien Treuille, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, added that this new global brain also like to have a little fun while it's science. He and his colleagues are the creators of two online games, Foldit and Eterna, which simulate protein folding and structural mapping of RNA, respectively. These games have proven surprisingly popular among the players and nonresearchers solutions often surprised scientists because their creativity is not constrained by what they think the correct answer should look like, said Treuille. And this is precisely the value of crowdsourcing, he notes. "It is not a linear thing to engage the public in science," said Teuille. "It is incredibly non-linear and all kinds of crazy things out, some of them brilliant."
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