BashTheBug @ Zooniverse

Below are the most recent posts about the BashTheBug project on the Zooniverse which you can find here.

• BashTheBug paper out!23rd May 2022
  Read the first scientific paper published in eLife. Anyone can go to the website and read it, there is no paywall. Each image is looked at by… Read more: BashTheBug paper out!
• Read all about it!22nd July 2021
  The first scientific paper investigating how we can best use all the classifications done by our volunteers is now available for anyone to download and read here.… Read more: Read all about it!
• Oxford Public Engagement with Research Conference 20206th August 2020
  We gave a talk, “Setting up an online citizen science project on the Zooniverse is easy: the BashTheBug experience” to other researchers at the University of Oxford… Read more: Oxford Public Engagement with Research Conference 2020
• 4 Million Classifications Reached29th June 2020
  Hi All, We hope you are all well and keeping safe and sane during these trying and daunting times We wanted to say Thank You! You have… Read more: 4 Million Classifications Reached
• BashTheBug part of Earth School16th June 2020
  In response to the COVID pandemic, UN Environment (UNEP), TED Education, and many other partners and contributors around the world launched Earth School, which aims to give… Read more: BashTheBug part of Earth School
• Talking Science16th May 2020
  As part of the Talking Science series, Philip Fowler gave an evening talk via Zoom on Fri 15 May 2020. The recording can be watched via this… Read more: Talking Science
• Science Friday livestream1st May 2020
  Ariel Zych and Diana Montano team from Science Friday hosted a discussion with Philip Fowler (BashTheBug lead), Carla Wright (BashTheBug coordinator) and Helen Spiers (Zooniverse liaison) yesterday… Read more: Science Friday livestream
• BashTheBug on ScienceFriday27th April 2020
  Last Friday 24 April 2020, Laura Trouille, who is Co-Principal Investigator for the Zooniverse and Vice President of Citizen Science at the Adler Planetarium, was interviewed on… Read more: BashTheBug on ScienceFriday
• Zooniverse volunteer study27th April 2020
  You may have received this email from the Zooniverse Team and already taken part; if so, thank you. If not, please consider participating as the more volunteers… Read more: Zooniverse volunteer study
• Three million classifications20th April 2020
  You reached three million classifications on Sun 19 April 2020. That means it took you only 38 days to add a million classifications, which is astonishing. That… Read more: Three million classifications
• BashTheBug and COVID-1912th April 2020
  Like many of you, the researchers behind BashTheBug have been at home for a while now due to restrictions put in place to slow the progress of… Read more: BashTheBug and COVID-19
• Two Million Classifications7th April 2020
  You reached two million classifications on Thu 12 March 2020.
• Shout Out….to our top 20 Volunteers26th March 2020
  We would like to give a special Shout Out.. and Thank You to our Top 20 volunteers: User Name Classification Rank Pego.cs 63053 1 Elisabeth B 35058… Read more: Shout Out….to our top 20 Volunteers
• Visit to The Batt School, Witney, Oxfordshire16th March 2020
  On Friday 13 March I visited The Batt School in Witney, Oxfordshire as part of their activities for STEM week. This is a primary school (5-11 year… Read more: Visit to The Batt School, Witney, Oxfordshire
• We need YOUR help celebrating reaching two million classifications11th March 2020
  As of midnight Tue 10 March 2020 you had all done 1,959,626 classifications and so we will reach two million classifications later this week. To celebrate we… Read more: We need YOUR help celebrating reaching two million classifications
• Second largest number of classifications in a day recorded11th March 2020
  Yesterday evening (UK time) the Zooniverse sent an email to all their Citizen Scientists encouraging them to give BashTheBug a try. By midnight you’d all done 26,208… Read more: Second largest number of classifications in a day recorded
• Almost there…two million classifications is in sight!6th March 2020
  Wow. We emailed you all a few weeks back about how we needed your help catching up with some data and you have responded!
• This is how your work on classifications has helped us fight antibiotic resistance and Tuberculosis!27th February 2020
  Over the last five years since 2015, we have collected more than 100,000 samples from patients with Tuberculosis, from all over the world. We have tested which… Read more: This is how your work on classifications has helped us fight antibiotic resistance and Tuberculosis!
• Citizen Science Coordinator appointed22nd January 2020
  We have appointed Carla Wright as the new Citizen Science Coordinator. Carla will be working on the  project along side Phil to help support our amazing volunteers.
• Post advertised: Project Coordinator15th November 2019
  We are advertising for a Part-time Citizen Science Project Co-ordinator to come and work with us in Oxford improving BashTheBug, in particular how the project engages, informs… Read more: Post advertised: Project Coordinator
• 1.5 Million Classifications16th September 2019
  Wow, last Monday you reached 1.5 million classifications. Thank you.
• Launching BashTheBug on the Zooniverse mobile app11th June 2019
  After feedback from a number of volunteers, we’ve decided to change (nearly all) the workflows so you can classify images of M. tuberculosis growing using the new… Read more: Launching BashTheBug on the Zooniverse mobile app
• Testing BashTheBug on mobile devices10th May 2019
  Until recently the Zooniverse app, which is available for Android and iOS, could only handle very simple Citizen Science projects requiring a simple yes/no. They have just… Read more: Testing BashTheBug on mobile devices
• 20184th January 2019
  Our second calendar year and it has been a busy one. Highlights of the year include reaching a million classifications! meeting a volunteer for the first time… Read more: 2018
• Bacterial World26th October 2018
  BashTheBug is a small part of the new exhibition, Bacterial World, at the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford which was launched a week ago on… Read more: Bacterial World
• A crocheted bug!17th October 2018
  Gemma Hall has crocheted a woolly bug in the process of being bashed! Love it. If anyone wants to craft any bugs, whether being bashed or not,… Read more: A crocheted bug!
• One Million Classifications4th October 2018
  Thanks to the hard work and persistence of all our volunteer scientists, BashTheBug reached one million classifications around noon on Tuesday 2 October!
• A photo of everyone14th September 2018
  In total, we’ve done 974,283 classifications. Which means ONE MILLION isn’t too far away.
• After the Zooniverse newsletter was sent20th August 2018
  Two weeks ago exactly, I posted a small update on how we were doing; how classifications had been done by our volunteers etc. Then three days later,… Read more: After the Zooniverse newsletter was sent
• Focussing effort where it is needed8th August 2018
  Until now we have simply sent all the images of each M. tuberculosis sample growing on each and every of the 14 antibiotics out to be classified by… Read more: Focussing effort where it is needed
• August 2018 update6th August 2018
  It has been a while since I updated everyone on how BashTheBug is going.
• OxfordSparks podcast5th July 2018
  If you want to know about how BashTheBug is helping tackle tuberculosis and fits into the international CRyPTIC research project, listen to this podcast by OxfordSparks where you… Read more: OxfordSparks podcast
• Tuberculosis inspired textiles!13th June 2018
  Check out the work of my friend Lucy Turner who has created some textile designs based on various tuberculosis objects (if you look carefully you can see… Read more: Tuberculosis inspired textiles!
• Tuberculosis: from Victorian fashion to citizen science8th June 2018
  This public event comprised three talks, each about 15-25 minutes long. Videos of each talk can be found on YouTube, links below.
• Meet Samir27th April 2018
  Pause for a moment and think about the 750,000+ classifications achieved by BashTheBug in its first year of existence: that is an enormous number. The next thought… Read more: Meet Samir
• BashTheBug at ECCMID201825th April 2018
  BashTheBug has just got back from the recent European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Madrid, Spain. You can see some descriptive analysis of the… Read more: BashTheBug at ECCMID2018
• BashTheBug is one year old!7th April 2018
  BashTheBug was officially launched one year ago today. Since then 10,213 people from all over the world have classified 735,070 images of M. tuberculosis growth, which is… Read more: BashTheBug is one year old!
• Super Science Saturday14th March 2018
  Researchers from ModMedMicro showed BashTheBug to the public today at the Oxford Natural History Museum as part of Super Science Saturday. Thanks to Nick, Tree, Ali and… Read more: Super Science Saturday
• Oxford Brookes Science Bazaar4th March 2018
  A week ago on Saturday, BashTheBug and Lucy Turner together ran a stall at the annual, extremely popular Oxford Brookes Science Bazaar.
• Classifications update23rd February 2018
  It has been a while since I provided an update on how many classifications everyone is doing. We are approaching a significant milestone; to date 9,705 people… Read more: Classifications update
• Crystallisation of Clofazimine22nd January 2018
  This is another great example of how volunteers spot things that we, the professional scientists, miss.
• 201715th January 2018
  Before 2017 slips out of mind, here is a list of all the things that happened in our first year as it has whizzed by
• Research for All. A poem by Sam Illingworth18th December 2017
  This is a BashTheBug first; a poem about Citizen Science and The Zooniverse that mentions bug bashing! Head over to Sam Illingworth’s site to check it out… Read more: Research for All. A poem by Sam Illingworth
• Google11th December 2017
  Last week, BashTheBug was invited to Google in London to celebrate winning the Community Award of the inaugural NIHR Let’s Get Digital competition. Myself and Helen Spiers… Read more: Google
• Half a million classifications26th November 2017
  We reached 500,000 classifications sometime late on Thursday 16 November 2017 – a little over seven months after launch! Thank you to all the volunteers who have… Read more: Half a million classifications
• An evening at the London Natural History Museum30th October 2017
  Last Friday, along with several other Zooniverse projects, BashTheBug was invited to the monthly Lates event of the Natural History Museum in London as part of a pop-up… Read more: An evening at the London Natural History Museum
• A brief update23rd October 2017
  A bit over six months since BashTheBug launched, and it is still attracting new Citizen Scientists – over 7,350 people have contributed to the project now –… Read more: A brief update
• Six months old19th October 2017
  BashTheBug is six months old! To mark the event, I’ve written a longer article that appears on the Zooniverse blog which talks through in more detail the… Read more: Six months old
• NEW ethambutol images27th September 2017
  You may have noticed the images recently have not had much bacterial growth on them, which, if I was doing lots of classifications, would be a bit… Read more: NEW ethambutol images
• BashTheBug featured on ScienceUpdate22nd September 2017
  BashTheBug was featured yesterday on ScienceUpdate, a one-minute daily briefing on interesting topics in science run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Click… Read more: BashTheBug featured on ScienceUpdate
• Our top ten users13th September 2017
  Although I’ve posted before on how a small number of users do a lot of classifications and how BashTheBug follows the Pareto, or 80:20, principle, the only… Read more: Our top ten users
• BashTheBug on BBC Radio Oxford13th September 2017
  You can hear BashTheBug’s creator, Philip Fowler, briefly talk about BashTheBug how he got the idea of using Citizen Science to study antibiotic resistance and how the… Read more: BashTheBug on BBC Radio Oxford
• BashTheBug has won an NIHR Let’s Get Digital award!4th September 2017
  Our Citizen Science project has won the Online Community award in the NIHR Let’s Get Digital competition! This is no mean feat since there were 165 entries to… Read more: BashTheBug has won an NIHR Let’s Get Digital award!
• A quick progress update2nd September 2017
  In the six weeks since I last wrote a post with a statistics update, the Citizen Scientists have done 60,628 classifications bringing us up to 354,189. That… Read more: A quick progress update
• We’ve been shortlisted for an Online Community award!21st July 2017
  We’ve been shortlisted in the Online Community category of the NIHR Let’s Get Digital awards! The winner is decided by a public vote, so if you enjoy contributing… Read more: We’ve been shortlisted for an Online Community award!
• How many classifications has everyone done?21st July 2017
  Since the last time I gave an update the Citizen Scientists have added nearly 50,000 classifications. I say nearly, because we are at 293,591 classifications so just 6,409 shy of… Read more: How many classifications has everyone done?
• Why have some workflows finished but not others?21st July 2017
  To understand this I need to explain where all the images come from. A small part of each sample of Tuberculosis is injected into each well of… Read more: Why have some workflows finished but not others?
• What do you have to do in the BashTheBug citizen science project?29th June 2017
• BashTheBug featured by GenomeWeb28th June 2017
  BashTheBug, and its parent project, CRyPTIC, have been featured in an article by GenomeWeb. This puts both projects into the wider scientific context. Note of caution –… Read more: BashTheBug featured by GenomeWeb
• Interview with Carolyn Day23rd June 2017
  Hello Carolyn: Hiya BashTheBug. I sense an American accent hiding in there… Yep. You’d be right. I’m a Professor in British History & the History of Medicine based… Read more: Interview with Carolyn Day
• Wow. A quarter of a million classifications.19th June 2017
  Was idly checking how many classifications had been done up to midnight last night to find we’ve just nudged over the quarter-of-a-million (250,033 to be exact). That is… Read more: Wow. A quarter of a million classifications.
• The contributions to BashTheBug are following the Pareto Principle12th May 2017
  Last week’s post showed how a relatively few number of volunteers do a huge number of classifications. By today, the top 0.3% of citizen scientists (the top ten) have… Read more: The contributions to BashTheBug are following the Pareto Principle
• The first four weeks7th May 2017
  Nearly a month after the public launch, the Zooniverse citizen scientists have done a staggering 152,816 classifications. That brings us to 24% through this initial dataset and 47%… Read more: The first four weeks
• The first fortnight21st April 2017
  Another amazing week. Together the Zooniverse citizen scientists did 28,721 classifications this week, bringing the grand total to 108,833. This is 19% of the way towards classifying all… Read more: The first fortnight
• End of week 115th April 2017
  BashTheBug went live on the Zooniverse website a bit over a week ago, just after midnight on Friday 7 April. Since then 1,134 people have participated, which is… Read more: End of week 1
• Online launch coverage11th April 2017
  BashtheBug has been covered so far by
• End of day 18th April 2017
  Thank you to everyone who had a go at BashTheBug yesterday, by the end of the day you’d done 7,724 classifications which is awesome. Also, thank you… Read more: End of day 1
• BashTheBug is launched today!7th April 2017
  Today is the official launch of the BashTheBug citizen science project, hosted by Zooniverse.org. The project invites you to help fight antibiotic resistance in Tuberculosis (TB), a disease… Read more: BashTheBug is launched today!
• BashTheBug at the Science Museum29th March 2017
  A group of us from Modernising Medical Microbiology headed off to the Science Museum in London this afternoon to talk about antibiotic resistance with, well, anyone at one of… Read more: BashTheBug at the Science Museum
• Results of the beta-testing28th March 2017
  Thanks to all the Zooniverse.org beta testers who have tried out our BashTheBug project these last six days. In that short period of time 629 volunteers made… Read more: Results of the beta-testing
• The Artwork28th March 2017
  The beautiful background photographs of the bacteria growing in petri dishes are the result of an art project, Gut Flora, that is a collaboration between Nicola Fawcett, MMM, and Chris… Read more: The Artwork
• The Aim28th March 2017
  BashTheBug is an online project studying, with the help of the public, antibiotic resistance in Tuberculosis (TB). It will be launched  on the well-known and successful citizen science platform,… Read more: The Aim
• DTC Programming Module Project: Identification of antibiotic resistance7th November 2016
  Background The inevitable and relentless growth of antibiotic resistance threatens much of the progress made by modern medicine in the last seventy years. Tuberculosis (TB) is an… Read more: DTC Programming Module Project: Identification of antibiotic resistance