Quarantined Scientists Are Turning the Internet Into Their Laboratory

Creative approaches to research allow science to continue during the pandemic

Photo: Diane Keough/Getty Images

It’s been an incredibly busy few months for infectious disease researchers. For many other scientists, however, the pandemic has ground work to a halt. Many who have been locked out of their labs have mourned the Covid-necessitated euthanasia of lab animals and the indefinite cessation of their research.

But others who have discovered creative ways to turn the internet into their laboratories remain hard at work. Their ingenuity allows research in areas like ecology, climate change, and astronomy — as well as collaboration with other researchers and citizen scientists — to continue despite the pandemic. The internet, it turns out, is a very good place to gather raw scientific data, if you know how to look for it.

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