I heard this on Radio 4 this morning - Galaxy Zoo has opened. Because the human brain is far more sophisticated than any machine could possibly be, the researchers have recruited members of the public to identify galaxies. All the images are uploaded and ready to go. I've just registered, and passed the initial test to see if I'm a good galaxy taxonomist, so I'll be doing my part when I'm sitting in front of the television or on my lunch break.
I know it's not palaeontology, but all science is fascinating, and astronomy conjures up the same sense of adventure and the unknown (and incredible coolness) that dinosaur science does. When I used to leave my computer on all day I took part in the SETI and anti-cancer screensaver experiments (many years ago - not really possible now I have a computer that automatically logs itself off!), and it's great being part of a bigger study. Of course I'd be delighted if I could persuade the public to run my data for me, but I will never have as big a data set as an astronomer.
I do wonder whether DAISY would be suited to a study like this though. I used DAISY for one of my MRes theses in summer 2003, on Iguanodon teeth, and due to a small data set I obtained results that were almost nothing but noise, but on large sets it works very well and is highly accurate. Reading the 2005 article (I am so out of the loop!) I'm quite intrigued by the studies using XYZ coordinates, and wondering if three-dimensional morphometric studies could, in the future, incorporate DAISY studies to assess the similarity between organisms on many different levels.
But I digress. Go sign up for Galaxy Zoo.
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