I will shamefully admit that citizen science was something that I wasn’t aware of until I entered this class. The concept truly intrigues me– the possibility that I could have an impact on something much larger than me without doing anything I can’t really understand– I think it’s amazing. Unfortunately, I chose a project that even if it is doing something, isn’t doing it in a way that reeled me in.

Worm Watch Lab is a citizen science program ran by the Medical Research Council. The objective is to observe thirty second videos of the nematode worm C. Elegans in order to help understanding of how the human brain works. One might ask how we are comparable to worms– they have almost as many genes as us, and they also happen to be closely related to humans. In the videos, worms are tracked to see how frequently they lay eggs, and the viewer contributes by pressing the “Z” key each time the worms lay eggs. The worms don’t lay a lot of eggs. In fact, the worms lay so few eggs that the site feels a need to warn you that you could sit through thirty to fifty videos before seeing an egg. There is also a solid chance that once an egg appears, you won’t even know, because in the videos they’re small gray blobs that are the same shade as the small gray worms.

Needless to say, this got frustrating very quickly. Still, I did learn a few things. The observations were relevant because some of the worms had chemical imbalances that parallel the human brain. The most common imbalances were of dopamine and acetylcholine. Other worms had undetermined imbalances that were said to cause them to lay abnormally large or small amounts of eggs, and some had no imbalances at all. Since the worms didn’t lay many eggs– less than ten across around fifty videos– I cannot really attest to those patterns in relation to their imbalances. However, worms with dopamine or acetylcholine imbalances were noticeably either way more or way less active than normal worms, and if any worms ever did lay eggs, it was usually them.

I think Worm Watch Lab is an interesting concept, but I wish I could have learned more. I don’t see much sense in tracking an excessive amount of worms with unknown imbalances, since that data definitely doesn’t have the potential to be significant. I also think Worm Watch Lab could benefit immensely from color video, if that’s even something that’s possible, because I’m still not sure if all of the eggs I identified were actually there and things could definitely be more distinguishable. Still, I am intrigued by the concept of citizen science and will likely contribute to other efforts in the future.