More than two hundred thousand authors
The authors of the scientific publication were 218 thousand participants of the online game
The editors of the Journal of Molecular Biology and the authors of one of the articles submitted to this journal had to solve a difficult conflict in the field of scientific ethics. The editorial board hesitated for a long time to publish an article, the authors of which were, in addition to ten professional biologists, also 218,837 participants of the online game. In the end, the article was accepted and has already appeared in the online version of the magazine (For RNA paper based on a computer game, authorship creates an identity crisis).
Screenshot from the game EteRNA
The EteRNA game was created in 2010 by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University. It runs in the browser and does not require the installation of any additional programs on the users' computer. EteRNA is devoted to solving the problems of constructing the spatial structure (folding) of RNA molecules. Like protein molecules, RNA chains are often folded in a complex way depending on various factors. Calculating the structure that this chain will take turns out to be a difficult task for a computer, but in the construction of these structures there are a number of difficult formalizable principles that, nevertheless, a person can grasp. The participants of the game offer configurations of molecules, depending on the success of the proposed form, they are awarded points. Two years earlier, a similar Foldit game was created, dedicated to determining the spatial structure of protein molecules.
EteRNA first attracted attention in 2014, when an article was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-authored by more than 37 thousand players. A new paper sent in 2015 to the Journal of Molecular Biology already had 218,837 co-authors. The editorial board of the magazine postponed publication due to the fact that the vast majority of participants in the EteRNA game indicated only the nicknames under which they were registered on the site, and not their real names and surnames. "The generally accepted criterion of authorship is that the authors take responsibility for the content of the article," said biophysicist Peter Wright, editor of the journal. – From my point of view, identifying the author only by an on-screen pseudonym, which can be changed at the moment, is inappropriate, since it is impossible to contact this person in case of problems." In the end, the players listed as co-authors agreed to tell the magazine their real names.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
24.02.2015