Geek Nirvana!

So in addition to being politically interested I am also a turbogeek. If there's a scientific study out there about something interesting to me you can bet I have already seen it.

I generally don't make it a habit of involving others in my mindless prattling about science and the like, I prefer to keep it under my hat as it were, but this week there's a great experiment that's sweeping planetary scientists off their feet. I'm talking, of course, about the Stardust mission. I am also talking about the newer and less well known Stardust@Home project. This latter is a chance for all of us armchair science geeks to show their stripes by taking part in the search for space dust collected on the aerogelcollector on the Stardust probe.

Stardust@home needs you. Unlike the wildly successful SETI@home project they need more than your computer processing time though. They need your eyes and your ability to discern meaningful data from background noise. You can sign up to help here and get trained when the time comes.

This looks like a great opportunity to release your inner geek and also to help out on a very serious planetary experiment.