Hello folks - the Northeast Barnraising is quickly approaching, and research discussions on our mailing lists have been exploding this past week -- check it all out, below:

(Above: iFarm 2014 participants from Public Lab and Farm Hack discuss digital infrastructure for open source communities in Lee, NH -- photo by Jeff Waren)

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Announcements

The Public Lab Northeast Barnraising 2014 is in less than 3 weeks! RSVP to join in and join the mailing list here: http://publiclab.org/wiki/barnraising

Global Fab award nominations are open through May 31st! They are now accepting nominations for low-cost, open source sensing projects that have the potential to improve lives around the world. Selected projects will be displayed at the Fab10 conference in Barcelona. https://www.fab10.org/en/awards

Events

On June 5 at 3:30pm in NYC, Shannon Dosemagen, Jeff Warren, and Catherine D'Ignazio will be on Public Lab--heavy panel at Personal Democracy Forum "Hands-On Tech and Civic Engagement" - http://personaldemocracy.com/program

Chris Fastie has published a series of great follow-up notes on the iFARM event last weekend in New Hampshire, including hay rides & agricultural hacking: http://publiclab.org/tag/ifarm2014

Public Lab is participating in World Science Festival NYC - May 31 as part of Science Hack Day: Science In The City - A spectrometry workshop will be 10am-1pm. http://publiclab.org/notes/liz/05-23-2014/come-try-spectrometry-at-science-hack-day

New and ongoing projects

Stevie Lewis posted about the amount of ammonia, sulfuric acid and lead released by the company Missisippi Phosphate: http://publiclab.org/notes/stevie/05-23-2014/mississippi-phosphates-better-air-for-alice

Mathew Lippincott has been researching the relationship between frac sand mining and state-wide aquifer maps: http://publiclab.org/notes/mathew/05-23-2014/midwestern-frac-sand-deposits-aquifers-rivers

Mathew's also been researching ways to measure silica dust cheaply with a flatbed scanner and polarizer filters: http://publiclab.org/notes/mathew/05-21-2014/imagining-testing-polarized-light-microscopy-for-silica-dust-speciation

Sara Wylie published an in-depth piece on low-cost thermal imaging work by her students at Northeastern University, building on the Thermal Fishing Bob project: http://publiclab.org/notes/Sara/05-23-2014/making-pedagogy-reflections-on-northeastern-university-thermal-fishing-bob-workshops

Research Note highlights

Juan Pablo Torrente used a Mobius camera and a pole to document a curious ruin which recent weather revealed on a beach in Gijón, Spain: http://publiclab.org/notes/Juan/05-19-2014/accion-pap-de-urgencia-gijon-spain

Pat Coyle has been triggering a kite photography rig with an Arduino and a server: http://publiclab.org/notes/patcoyle/05-22-2014/initial-results-kap-with-arduino-driven-servo-with-chdk-for-panoramas

Public Lab's Google Summer of Code students are wrapping up their first week of work on Public Lab software; stay up to date on their progress at http://publiclab.org/tag/gsoc2014

Hot topics on the mailing lists

An update on the Citizens Water Quality Testing Program in NYC: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-nyc/Rkc6kg_V5lA

The spectrometry mailing list has been blowing up during the last few days with rock analysis, Raman spectroscopy, and other new areas of research.

Defining Raman Spectroscopy simply, and its feasibility by DIY researchers: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-spectrometry/Bv01MhINBqg

Designing a workshop on identifying oil contamination in Chicago: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-spectrometry/v2HW7k6cLBc

Identifying rocks with DIY Spectrometers: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-spectrometry/dcsm7tuY690

Identifying saponins in ginsengs: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-spectrometry/wIlkz1t2-qQ

The Infrared list has been discussing the new Infragram.org beta interface: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-infrared/uZser1uiUKY

Related communities

Farm Hack Kentucky is hosting an event on Small Scale Grain Production (http://farmhack.net) - June 7th, 2014 - Community Farm Alliance: http://farmhack.net/node/1304