The funding for "big science" is subject to all kinds of political whim, so maybe it's time to bolster the efforts of small science projects that might still contribute to the world's scientific knowledge. (And, hopefully, citizen scientists won't waste too much time or resources on perpetual motion machines or homeopathic remedies.) Here are just a few programs that citizen scientists can participate in.

• The White House is looking for citizen scientists and is accepting nominations for notable people who have made a significant impact on society. The White House will host its Champions of Change event on Citizen Science on June 4, 2013 -- so get your nominations in by the end of April. [url]
• If you like ants, here's your chance to have some say in giving a common name to the ant species forelius pruinosus. Anyone can vote on the top four names: barricade ant, blockade ant, high noon ant or highway ant. (vote before April 30th!) [url]
• Citizen scientists submitted projects to a Scistarter contest earlier this year, and the grand prize went to a device that creates fuel from water. It's not exactly a Mr. Fusion, but splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is still a neat demonstration. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Humans aren't the only animals on our planet that can communicate with other members of our species. As we study more of our fellow creatures, we continue to find surprising instances of intelligence and thought and problem-solving abilities. Here are just a few examples.

• Japanese scientists have created images showing how a thought moves through the brain of a zebrafish. The brain activity doesn't look particularly complex, but it's a start -- and it could lead to a better understanding of how other brains work. [url]
• Slime mold doesn't have a brain, but it can figure out complex problems -- if we give set it up under the right conditions. The slime mold Physarum polycephalum can navigate a maze and find the shortest path when given a map made of carefully-placed food. [url]
• Almost anyone who has observed ants closely knows that ants can communicate via trails of chemicals (pheromones) and by touching each other -- but some ants can also communicate using sounds. Researchers have recorded some of the sounds, and they've seen ants respond to the recordings as if their fellow ants were calling to them. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Since it's Halloween, there are probably a lot of folks dressed up like zombies. But as we've mentioned before, Mother Nature has created a few of her own actual zombies. Here are just a few more examples.

• Did you know that the government sprays a baculovirus into the forest that can cause gypsy moth caterpillars to act reckless and even suicidal? The virus infects the caterpillars, takes over their molting genes, and re-programs the zombie caterpillars to liquify and rain contagious bodily fluids down upon other gypsy moth larvae. [url]
• North American wood frogs can survive being partially frozen (up to 70 percent of their internal water turned to ice) and twitch back to life. The frogs can stay in suspended animation for about 4 weeks, and it takes them about a day to thaw out and return to the living world. [url]
• Ants in Borneo have been found with a curious ability to explode and spew a sticky yellow glue over their enemies. The lethal sticky substance can take out other insect invaders and protect an ant colony from attack. [url]
• European paper wasps, infected by parasites, are turned into zombies that leave their hive to gather with other zombie wasps -- so that the parasites can mate. Wasps with female parasites become crazy queen wasps that fly off to infect more wasps. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Biology has solved a lot of problems over millions of years, so we might as well try to learn from it. Here are just a few examples of using biological systems to help improve our own technology.

• Slime mold can be used to verify the efficiency of Japan's railroad networks. Creating a food map of Japan and letting mold grow over it sounds like a fun science project for kids! [url]
• Researchers in distributed computing problems are learning from insect nervous systems. By studying how a fruit fly develops its sensory organs, we can learn the strategies of biological evolution and apply similar techniques to technological problems. [url]
• Security software that mimics ant behavior is a project that's been around for awhile. So the bad guys are probably already writing ant-eater malware.... [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

There are plenty of zombie movies where viruses decimate the human population with diseases that turn infected hosts into crazy, blood-thirsty undead bodies. Biotech research reports (and maybe even the CDC!) make some of the premises for these zombie movies sound plausible, but mother nature itself has created a few zombie phenomena as well. Here are just some examples.

• Toxoplasma gondii infects rodents, cats.. and people -- possibly causing weird behaviors and strange culture quirks. The Happening has already happened, sort of. [url]
• Fungus-controlled ants are compelled by their mold-masters to die in nice neighborhoods for spores to thrive. These ants are programmed to die on north-facing plant leaves, roughly 25 centimeters off the ground, in an area with 94-95% humidity and a temperature between 20-30 Celsius. [url]
• A wasp's venom can turn a cockroach into a "dog on a leash." The wasp ends up laying eggs in the belly of its cockroach-pet -- and the wasp young eat their way out. [url]
• Another kind of wasp lays its eggs in an orb spider, and the larvae control the spider to build a special web for them. Is there a Spiderman villan based on this wasp? [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.