The article leads with the example of Rytis Slatkevicius, an MBA student by day, who, in 2006 when he was ony 18, had assembled the world’s largest database of prime numbers — those which are only divisible by themselves and one. He had done this by harnessing the spare processing power of computers belonging to thousands of prime-number enthusiasts, using the internet. These days professional mathematicians collaborate with him, using the power of his volunteer computing network, PrimeGrid, to address significant problems.

There are nearly 100 science projects using such volunteer computing. Like PrimeGrid, most are based on an open-source software platform called BOINC with volunteer computing. Many address topical themes, such as modelling climate change  with ClimatePrediction.net, developing drugs for AIDS with FightAids@home, or simulating the spread of malaria with MalariaControl.net.

This volunteer computing approach is also facilitating fundamental science projects. For example,  Einstein@Home analyzes data from gravitational wave detectors, MilkyWay@Home simulates galactic evolution, and LHC@home studies accelerator beam dynamics.

These projects leverage a sense of online community. BOINC provides enthusiastic volunteers with message boards to chat with each other and share information about the science behind the project. This is strikingly similar to the sort of social networking that happens on websites such as Facebook, but with a scientific twist. BOINC also provides a credit system, which measures how much processing each volunteer has done — turning the project into an online game where they can compete as individuals or in teams. Again, there are obvious analogies with popular online games such as Second Life.

This is real science, being done by all sorts of real people collaborating together across geographic and political boundaries; people motivated by a sense of enquiry and wonder whose interactions are made possible by social networking.

For those who don’t know, Mulu now contains the largest natural underground chamber in the world , Sarawak Chamber,  (which is big enough to accommodate 42 jumbo-jets without overlapping their wings) and also the 6th largest Chamber; it has the largest single cave passage in the world, Deer Cave, and the longest cave in S.E.Asia, Clearwater. The Clearwater System, which has been the focus of much of our work in recent years, is now 177.6km in length, which makes it the 8th longest cave in the world. You can find out more on the Mulu Caves Project website.

That original expedition fielded a huge, multi-disciplinary team of scientists who, for 15months, studied Mulu’s beautiful rainforests. The expedition was a stunning success.

In another email, I found that my co-Director had won a contract for me to write a business plan for an educational initiative in the south west. This project aims to bring together small groups of highly-skilled graduates from around the world to work in multi-disciplinary teams undertaking commercial projects. The benefits to the students will be to gain production experience in a high-pressure commercial environment, to learn from each other and to spin out novel ideas to meet the needs of their clients and to generate new innovations. The benefit to their clients will be to have access to that concentration of expertise and creativity, an innovation-tank to solve their challenges.

It’s that last point that’s important. By bringing together people from different disciplines and varied backgrounds, you have the opportunity to apply different perspectives, different ideas and novel thinking; team members spark ideas off each other and innovation is the outcome.

With the challenges facing society – economic meltdown, climate change, mass population migrations, water conflict, peak oil, food shortages (need I go on) we need more opportunities for multi-disciplinary approaches, more chances to bring together creative thinkers, more hope that we can overcome some of the challenges facing us or, more particularly, facing our children.

Anyway, back to Robin’s email… it was a request for me to support the Beagle Campaign. I did so with great enthusiasm and I suggest that you do, too.