Science, Science and Society, Technology

Citizen science class: Using the “bigfoot genome” for 21st century biology

Those of you who read this blog regularly (or not) will likely have picked up that I have something of a passion for things involving citizen science and education-type stuff. So, with that in mind, I present to you ‘science: cryptogenomics - using the “bigfoot genome” for 21st century biology‘.

The class is being run through Chalkle, a local and award-winning education platform/community. What’s it all about, though, and what will you get out of it? According to its description:

Earlier this year researchers claimed to have published a bigfoot genome sequence.

We will use publicly available tools and data to learn what they actually sequenced, then compare their results to those of recent studies that really used DNA evidence to show the existence on different human species.

what you will learn

Learn how to use free on-line tools to compare the genetics of the “sasquatch sequence” with other known species - all from your own laptop!

You’ll come away knowing:

  • what the tools are
  • where to access them,
  • how they work and
  • finally be able to figure out where ‘sasquatch’ is descended from and whether it’s real or not!

 

It’ll take place on April 2, 2013, in the evening, in Wellington CBD. Cost is a piffling $15 a person, you don’t need to have any prior expertise (yay!) and there are tonnes more details and instructions on signing up on the class’s page.

Oh, and did I mention the class is being run by fellow Sciblogger, ‘epic science communicator’, evolutionary geneticist extraordinnaire and all-around lovely chap Dr David Winter?

So, SO many reasons to go along. SO MANY*.

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* One of which, if I have facts straight, is that this is the first actual ‘citizen science’ class that Chalkle has run. So let’s show some support and have more things like this in future!

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Related posts:

Why aren’t more Kiwis involved in the International Space Apps Challenge?

Open course: Science from Superheroes to Global Warming

A bunch of others - just rummage through my blog :P