At TARTLE we talk a lot about how our business model – a data marketplace centered on the sovereign individual – can help improve a number of fields. We’ve mentioned how it can help businesses with their marketing and their product development. We’ve spent more time talking about how TARTLE’s data marketplace can be of use in the medical field by directly tracking the habits of individuals and the effects of different foods, medicines, and treatments on them. What about other fields though? Can TARTLE be of use even in the hard sciences?
Before we answer that question, let’s back up a bit, in fact, let’s back up all the way to the peaks of the Andes Mountains in Chile. This mountain range, one of the longest and most imposing in the world, is home to a number of observatories. There are few lights to drown out the stars, little local pollution, and due to the height the air is remarkably thin which means there are fewer obstructions, especially thermal distortions between the telescope and the vacuum of space. These observatories take in tons of data, so much data that teraflops barely begin to cover it. Unfortunately, a lot of that data doesn’t get shared for a long time. It gets locked into the servers at the observatory for later study. Often, images from the telescope can sit for months or years before anyone sees them.
Fortunately, there are those who are working on changing that. The Rubin Observatory and Google have recently entered into a partnership that will get data from the telescope uploaded to the cloud in real time. For the first time, all of that data will be getting put into the cloud where it can be accessed by researchers around the world, as it is gathered. Image after image after image, from the depths of space to the cloud for study. That saves a lot of time, money, and space for the observatory since they don’t have to worry about all the server equipment and its upkeep. Researchers benefit by getting faster access to the latest data. That helps by being able to amend existing theories or even formulate new ones based on the incoming information faster than ever before.
How does all of this relate to TARTLE? After all, we don’t have the servers that Rubin will be uploading to. However, anyone from around the world can sign up to TARTLE and that includes amateur astronomers. That brings us back to our question, how can TARTLE help with the hard sciences?
Let’s just look at the example of amateur astronomy. It’s well known that amateur astronomers discover the majority of comets every year. What if all amateur astronomers were uploading their photos to TARTLE and then sharing them with observatories and universities around the world? How many more discoveries could be made by integrating and comparing them with each other and with the photos taken by the larger observatories? How many comets could be discovered? We would be more likely to pick up a near earth asteroid before it gets too close to act. Study of the sun would also be advanced as amateur scopes can track sunspots.
There are a number of other sciences that could be benefited as well. Geology could benefit from data gathered by rock hounds, marine biology from deep sea fishermen, paleontologists from amateur fossil hunters, meteorologists from tornado chasers, all uploading and sharing their data in real time. The possibilities are endless.
All of these are just further examples of the democratization of data and how individuals can benefit themselves and others through the simple act of signing up with TARTLE and sharing their data. TARTLE is part of a movement that is making it possible for individuals to take part in new and exciting scientific discoveries that will improve the knowledge base of humanity as a whole.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
