A game has been developed by scientists to help the UK combat ash dieback disease. Source: Care2.com
Scientists working with the UK government are scrambling to find innovative ways to combat the disease, focusing on certain strains of ash that appear resistant to the fungus.
To help in the fight, scientists have now created a Facebook-integrated game called Fraxinus, the Ash Dieback Game that builds on the Open Ash Dieback Project, an opensource analysis project of ash dieback disease and tree resistance.
Developed in collaboration between BAFTA-nominated game developers Team Cooper and the daring research scientists at The Sainsbury Laboratory, the game is part of the Open Ash Die Back project.
Using social media to crowdsource scientific research and try to discover the genetic cause of Ash Die Back, Fraxinus intends to change the way that scientific research is obtained.
The game has players match up sequences of colored leaves, which are used to represent strings of genetic information taken from ash trees in the UK as well as their ash dieback resistant cousins from Denmark.
It is hoped that the data this might unlock will enable scientists to radically speed up the process of engineering ash dieback resistant ash trees. That’s because the data gathered from players will help identify which individual trees should be crossbred with each other to best create resistant ash trees without lowering the overall immunity to other diseases.
Dr. Dan MacLean, from the John Innes Centre in Norwich, came up with the idea. He told the BBC that it’s not just about ash dieback, however. They also want the game to be fun for the player.
