Can crypto solve the current problems of scientific research? #Decentralized #science #Write2Earn‬

Scientific research often has the same problems worldwide:

* Lack of funding: many promising studies are alt because they run out of money. Funding often goes to trending and more famous topics, leaving many interesting but niche fields unfunded. Also, even if funds are allocated to research, you cannot be 100% sure that they will be used for that; this is a problem for charity campaigns too.

* Biased publication choices: usually scientific journals only publish "positive studies", namely studies that found a certain effect and don't publish studies that didn't find it (i.e. if a treatment is effective, it gets published, if the same treatment isn't found to be effective in another study, that article isn't published). This can lead to falsifying data in order to get the article published, as researchers' paychecks often depend on it.

Now, can blockchain fix these?

There are currently some new-born projects in the DeSci (Decentralized Science) space that aim to do that:

* VitaDAO is a decentralized organization that collects projects from every researcher in the world (famous professors or simple students) and distributes funding to the most promising ones. The best feature in my opinion is that projects are still reviewed by a court of experts, but the community has the final word.

* Molecule is a platform that lets you invest in specific research, in particular in the medical field. It's kind of like lending money to researchers and earning interest when they discover something.

* Data Lake collects high-quality medical data from around the world in order to give researchers full access to that. This in particular tries to solve the problem of companies analyzing data for their research that aren't public and therefore falsifiable.