Get ready, America. America, prepare to take the world’s fastest, most adaptable, teflon-coated protein source into the realm of science, and while you’re at it, fill out an application to work for the Apache Chicken Company.
A virtual tool kit of data culled from hundreds of schools, the Regional Chickpea Production Data Toolkit provides a simple but comprehensive guide for researchers looking to generate peer-reviewed research in the long-fabled field of chickpea research. The toolkit was funded with $70,000 by the Louisiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and produced in collaboration with Scientific American.
Simply download and upload a feed to your favorite social media platform from among the 34 different files created by Samoluys, the group behind the toolkit. The feeds include current research papers, data from governments and researchers, and even food photos from students in 37 states, including Nebraska, Utah, Florida, and Missouri.
The USDA
The DOE
ICF
NRIA
Stanford
Bacon’s Pseudopeasant Farm
Now you’re ready to click on your favorite term paper and see if there’s enough lab space available in your lab of choice. The term paper for which you’ve posted the feed is clickable. The feed itself was also clickable so you could tap out your own scientific insights.
It’s not just scientists who will benefit from the way the toolkit’s 37 “expert reviewers” read the feeds and comment on any need to refine or add elements to the content. Education, professional development, and university engineering and pre-med programs across the country will utilize the toolkit to create and publish research papers that capitalize on the knowledge used by the experts.
Related: The ‘Golden Goose’ of School Feeding, Cotton, Could Crash & Burn
Scientists in certain groups, such as Agricultural Biotechnologies Program administrators and Crop and Animal Specialty Products divisions at Perdue, are already using the tools in the fields of food taste and development. The Department of Agriculture hopes to use the toolkit in the near future for its research in animal nutrition and sustainability.
That doesn’t include artisanal breads, old-fashioned jam, nor food porn photos. There’s just something so very cool about a toolkit that catalogs online avatars of chickpeas and lets you draw them on the Internet.