This week in the Public Lab community newsletter, learn more about the launch of the Homebrew Sensing Project, join a new mailing list for Public Lab Los Angeles and get ready for Toolshed Raising part 2 in Boston. Enjoy!

Announcements

We’re happy to announce a partnership with Ioby to crowdfund local community projects! Featured this week is the Refinery Flare Monitoring project by Dan Beavers. This exciting proposal seeks to develop and install a series of prototype 24-hour monitoring stations based on the Public Lab spectrometry kit to attempt to identify contaminants such as heavy metals in gas refinery flares.

If you missed the news earlier this week, we’re happy to announce that Public Lab received a Knight Foundation, Knight News Challenge: Health grant for the Homebrew Sensing Project.

If you’re in or around Los Angeles, or just love the city, there is a new mailing list specifically for you! Join here: http://publiclab.org/wiki/los-angeles

A reminder that there is also a new Public Lab Spanish chapter. You can join the Spanish Google Group (laboratoriopublico@googlegroups.com) or follow the group on Twitter at @PublicLabEsp.

Upcoming events

In Somerville, MA “Toolshed Raising II” will take place on Feb 2: http://publiclab.org/wiki/toolshed-raising-02-02-14 with show-and-tell, workshops, and more, at Parts & Crafts.

On March 2nd, Toxics Action Center will be hosting their annual conference, Local Environmental Action 2014 in Boston (Public Lab will have a session and a booth): http://localenvironmentalaction.org/ -- more info on this in coming weeks.

A reminder that there will be a Gulf Coast MapKnitter Club meeting on January 23rd. Details are being posted and updated on the Gulf Coast Google Group.

Public Lab will be at the National Council for Science and the Environment’s 14th National Conference in DC the last weekend of January. If you’re planning on being in attendance, please swing by the Public Lab booth. We’re also looking for volunteers to help out! If you’re interested, email Jeff@publiclab.org.

Public Lab in the media

A couple articles on the Knight News Challenge came out this week, including one in Fast Company and in Government Technology.

Research Note highlights

1. Reagent-based PAH, VOH, PCB testing kits for soil and water, with pricing (posted by Warren)

2. Absorption spectra makes sense? (posted by dckim11)

3. First wireless transmission, mchck to mchck (posted by donblair)

If anything was missed, please email the list or post a research note. Have a great week everyone! Shannon

P.S. Remember -- you can subscribe to this newsletter or follow via RSS.