NASA Calls on Gamers, Citizen Scientists to Help Map World's Corals

NASA invites video gamers and citizen scientists to help map coral reefs around the world in an effort to better understand these threatened ecosystems.

Instruments mounted on drones and aircraft are allowing researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center to look below the ocean surface in more detail than ever before.

Using techniques originally developed to help telescopes compensate for turbulence in the atmosphere, these "fluid-lensing" cameras use complex calculations to undo the optical distortions created by the water over coral reefs.

3D images of the ocean floor and the corals and seagrass there have been captured along the shores of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and elsewhere. However, the data alone do not tell the whole story of what's happening to the corals beneath the waves.

That's where citizen scientists of all ages come in:

"NeMO-Net leverages the most powerful force on this planet: not a fancy camera or a supercomputer, but people," said Principal investigator Ved Chirayath. "Anyone, even a first grader, can play this game and sort through these data to help us map one of the most beautiful forms of life we know of."

On each "dive," players interact with real NASA data, learning about the different kinds of corals that lie on the shallow ocean floor while highlighting where they appear in the imagery. Players can track their progress, earn badges, and access educational videos about life on the sea floor.

Players are helping generate more data to help train NASA's Pleiades supercomputer at Ames to recognize corals from any image of the ocean floor, even those taken with less powerful instruments. The more NeMO-NET players, the better the supercomputer's mapping abilities become. This helps scientists will better understand what is happening to corals and find ways to preserve them.

Coral reefs in the shallow waters off Earth’s subtropical and tropical shores are among the most complex and diverse ecosystems on the planet. Teeming with life, scientists estimate that these reefs provide homes for as many species as a tropical rainforest. Corals are at risk from rising ocean temperatures, pollution and ocean acidification.

Reefs also play a part in combating disease. Marine systems – and particularly coral reefs – are often considered the “medicine cabinets” of the 21st century. Organisms such as sponges, mollusks and others that call reefs their homes have contributed to medicines used to treat viruses such as HIV and diseases such as cancer.