Soil Yourself

As visitors to the Cottage are aware, we like to get dirty. Another thing we like is the potential that crowdsourced science has to rapidly improve our knowledge. Here’s an opportunity to combine the two. The Natural Products Discovery Group is offering free soil collection kits, which they will then analyze for fungal compounds that may have medical uses.

Wouldn’t it be great if these guys were also looking at all the bacteria and other microbes in the soil samples? A database like this could help elucidate many of the ecosystem functions that soil microorganisms serve (with agricultural and climate change implications), as well as many potential non-medical uses for millions of unstudied compounds. But, hey, it’s a start.

I got mine – get yours!