data scientists

A Thai-language tech creator is drawing wide attention with a piece on making the fruit fly brain open source — sharing the full mapping of the insect's neural connections as openly available data. The topic taps into the landmark scientific effort to chart the complete fly brain connectome, letting researchers and hobbyists worldwide explore the wiring diagram freely.

Scientists have described a new land snail species, Acinolaemus altus, from Myanmar, published open access in the journal ZooKeys. The description includes full treatment data made freely available through the Plazi repository, in line with FAIR data practices. The find adds to the growing catalogue of Myanmar's land snail diversity, much of which remains poorly documented.

NASA's SWOT satellite mission is being highlighted for its ability to map roughly 100,000 underwater mountains, known as seamounts, from orbit. By measuring subtle differences in ocean surface height caused by the gravitational pull of undersea peaks, the mission is giving scientists a far more detailed picture of the ocean floor than traditional ship-based surveys ever could.

Washington State University researchers report that citizen science projects are advancing understanding of how grasses adapt to their environments. By drawing on observations contributed by volunteers, scientists can gather data on grass populations across wide geographic areas that would be difficult to collect alone. The findings highlight the growing role of public participation in ecological and climate-related research.