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Video game unleashes millions of citizen scientists on microbiome research

Borderlands Science is a casual mini-game released within a mass-market video game that crowdsources the alignment of one million RNA sequences from the human microbiome. In 3 years, 4 million participants generated over 135 million puzzle solutions that were used to build a reference alignment and improve microbial phylogeny.

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Fig. 1: Borderlands Science framework.

References

  1. Cooper, S. et al. Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature 466, 756–760 (2010). This paper reports the first citizen science game.

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  2. Szantner, A. Massively multiplayer online science. In Levelling Up: The Cultural Impact of Contemporary Videogames 103–110 (2016). This book chapter reports the first description of the MMOS concept.

  3. Kawrykov, A. et al. Phylo: a citizen science approach for improving multiple sequence alignment. PLoS One 7, e31362 (2012). This paper describes the citizen science mini-game that inspired Borderlands Science.

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  4. Changeux, J.-P. et al. Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics (Princeton Univ. Press, 1998). A book reporting a discussion between neurobiologist J.-P. Changeux and mathematician A. Connes on the relationship between human minds and the physical world.

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Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This is a summary of: Sarrazin-Gendron, R. et al. Improving microbial phylogeny with citizen science within a mass-market video game. Nat. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02175-6 (2024).

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Video game unleashes millions of citizen scientists on microbiome research.
Nat Biotechnol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02203-5

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  • Published: 17 April 2024

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02203-5

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