In science, as elsewhere, success is good. Failure may be even better. Science is very inefficient," says Ijad Madisch, founder of a Web site called ResearchGate.
"You try an experiment, fail, try again, fail, try again, it works. And what works is what you publish. All the data about failure is wasted."
Begun in 2008, ResearchGate claims to have 11,000 research and educational institutions among its users. It aims to be a place where people can share what they learned in the failed experiments.
Some of this is documented, but a great deal more takes place across chat rooms where scientists informally exchange information.
People's skills are indexed by subject area, so questions can be put to specific talents. As with many other social networks, helpful people are given good ratings, a status that seems to promote information sharing.
By archiving information in the public domain and persuading researchers to offer access to what they have published, the site also claims to enable access to 60 million publications, presumably mostly about successes.
While Madisch, a Syrian who grew up in Germany and did research work in Boston, hopes to add to the data available to scientists, he says his site represents an effort to deal with a pre-existing global explosion of information and computing power.
Huge databases of things like genetic information, he says, make it difficult to conduct solitary research along the scientific method of theory, test and interpretation.
"In the past you started an experiment and asked questions," he says, "Now you should announce what you are going to do, and seek the experience of others."
In one case, he said, a student in the Philippines was discouraged by his local peers into pursuing a formula for a biofuel. But he did the work once he was encouraged by a professor in Spain who had done similar work. The two are now collaborating on a project in Germany.
Research and experience are not the only areas of science that may become more valuable as everyone's computers are connected. A company called Science Exchange now offers oursourcing of science projects, including DNA sequencing at $2.50 a sample.
Madisch may also have a possible business in laboratories' renting to qualified researchers time on unused electron microscopes or magnetic resonance imaging machines.
That would be something like the way a company called Uber sells the down time on limousines to people who need a ride, or free beds are rented to travelers on Airbnb. After all, why profit just on mistakes?
"You try an experiment, fail, try again, fail, try again, it works. And what works is what you publish. All the data about failure is wasted."
Begun in 2008, ResearchGate claims to have 11,000 research and educational institutions among its users. It aims to be a place where people can share what they learned in the failed experiments.
Some of this is documented, but a great deal more takes place across chat rooms where scientists informally exchange information.
People's skills are indexed by subject area, so questions can be put to specific talents. As with many other social networks, helpful people are given good ratings, a status that seems to promote information sharing.
By archiving information in the public domain and persuading researchers to offer access to what they have published, the site also claims to enable access to 60 million publications, presumably mostly about successes.
While Madisch, a Syrian who grew up in Germany and did research work in Boston, hopes to add to the data available to scientists, he says his site represents an effort to deal with a pre-existing global explosion of information and computing power.
Huge databases of things like genetic information, he says, make it difficult to conduct solitary research along the scientific method of theory, test and interpretation.
"In the past you started an experiment and asked questions," he says, "Now you should announce what you are going to do, and seek the experience of others."
In one case, he said, a student in the Philippines was discouraged by his local peers into pursuing a formula for a biofuel. But he did the work once he was encouraged by a professor in Spain who had done similar work. The two are now collaborating on a project in Germany.
Research and experience are not the only areas of science that may become more valuable as everyone's computers are connected. A company called Science Exchange now offers oursourcing of science projects, including DNA sequencing at $2.50 a sample.
Madisch may also have a possible business in laboratories' renting to qualified researchers time on unused electron microscopes or magnetic resonance imaging machines.
That would be something like the way a company called Uber sells the down time on limousines to people who need a ride, or free beds are rented to travelers on Airbnb. After all, why profit just on mistakes?