Decoding an Ancient Papyri

When there is a little extra time, contributing to Zooniverse's citizen science projects online helps scientists find information and publish results to the community quicker and more efficiently. Sifting through large amounts of data requires a large base of researchers and a lot of time to complete. Using very unique web software, as a form of crowd-sourcing resource solutions, means those researchers can focus on multiple projects at once and save valuable time getting to answers.

The latest release is a live project called Ancient Lives. Participants in the project allow researchers can scan through a 1,000 year old papyri discovered in Oxyrhynchus (Oxyrhynchon polis), the City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish. Zooniverse's goal here to is transcribe literally thousands of ancient papyri including literature, legal proceedings, unseen gospels, and the work of Plato. The software works in a specific way to allow anyone to make matches to the papyri without knowing any Greek.

There are several other interesting projects available with the software too, which is a great way to maximize research efforts and learn a lot during the process. From planet hunting in the cosmos using a cell phone to understanding music created by insects, citizen science projects help unlock mysteries of the world around us.