As the dominant all-comers crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter's fundraising stats are leading indicators of where charitable online crowdfunding is headed. Just yesterday Kickstarter proclaimed that over 50,000 projects have been successfully funded to the tune of $836 million. They could barely contain their glee: For over a year, I've been observing a sliver of the rapidly expanding crowdfunding pie: science projects.

Labs at Yale are researching mosquito sterilization and the abilities of rubber-decomposing fungus, all without grants. As grants from federal organizations like the National Institutes of Health become increasingly difficult to secure, researchers at Yale and across the nation are turning to a new source of support.

Scientific Research Centers dropped sharply in their representation on this year’s list, the majority of which were lost from S. Korea. Absent from this year’s list are Government Agencies. This is not an indication that such organizations are not innovating, but rather that other sectors are innovating at a faster rate for the period covered.

List of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers.

A portrait from UNESCO shows where women are well represented among employed scientists, and where they are rare.

Here's an extraordinary recording of Albert Einstein from the fall of 1941, reading a full-length essay in English.

The Golden Goose Award officially recognizes scientists in the U.S., whose federally funded basic research has led to innovations or inventions which have a significant impact on humanity or society.

Discussion about open-access publishing and the future of scientific communication and peer-review at the Open Science Summit 2012.

Inside portrait of the research crowd-funding platform Microryza, at their office/home in San Francisco.

Open Government Data-Pilotportal

A team of researchers who found that people think they are more attractive when drinking alcohol, have scooped an Ig Nobel prize for their work. The researchers from France and the US confirmed the "beer goggle effect" also works on oneself.

With only one in five National Health and Medical Research Council ( NHMRC) grant applications successful, and a similar rate for Australian Research Council ( ARC) Discovery grants, it's little wonder researchers are looking to alternate forms of funding - one of which being crowdfunding.

H-index, citations, self-citations and other figures about Switzerland, based on Scopus data.