Spill Map

Remember that gigantic oil spill in 2012? Here’s a look at a “citizen scientist” project where people could log effects of the spill and their location (press release).

My thoughts:

• The health effects, like headaches and so on - no control group, huh?
• The press release headline is catchy but John Snow has nothing to do with citizen science. (Maps, yes.)
• In addition to the “real” data that was gathered, what if they mined data off of Twitter, like the project Atif mentions here? OK, it’s not a precise tool, but could possibly provide some broad patterns … and at least present an opportunity for something like a control group on headache reports.

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