Green chain reaction project: putting my minutes where my mouth is

Quick post to highlight a really cool project that is worth following, and participating in!, right now.

The Green Chain Reaction is a ground-breaking, innovative, global experiment. It will apply open data and citizen science to rapidly investigate:

“Are chemical reactions in the literature getting greener?”

Background work will be done in the next month, and some of the investigation will take place in real time at Science Online London 2010. As such the project will be highly visible.

Do you believe in the power of open data, open science, citizen science, and fun sprints around an important problem? Do you talk about it? Then join us.

Yup, us. I’m helping. I’m putting my minutes where my mouth is, and reallocating a few hours in the next month to the cause. I know nothing about chemistry. That is no problem, everybody can help. I’ll probably focus on writing to publishers asking for clarification about whether their publications can be data-mined.

You can help extract information from full text publications, test some software, help flush out the wiki, tweet about the experiment, contribute ideas, etc.

Don’t wait, check it out now and participate with some minutes. This sprint is only on for a month…

ps Kudos to Peter Murray-Rust, Simon Hodson, and the conference organizers for initiating this project. Innovative, informative, and exciting.