Sometimes, even the cleverest of scientists could benefit from a helping hand. Be it the need for an extra pair of eyes, volunteers for large experiments or fundraising, crowd sourcing is becoming an ever popular way of getting the public involved with scientific endeavours.

At some point during the last ice age, a resourceful Arctic ground squirrel was storing fruit in preparation for the harsh Siberian winter. The squirrel never made it back to its hoard, but 30,000 years later a group of Russian scientists did, and turned the ancient seeds in to flowering plants.

Over the past few days, people across northern parts of the UK have been treated to spectacular views of the Aurora borealis. Scientists predict this incredible phenomenon may well continue to appear throughout the coming week, eventually making its way down to the midlands.

Proving our planet still conceals many of its secrets, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University yesterday released an inventory of over 19,000 new species discovered by scientists during 2009.

Last week, the science community celebrated the discovery of the world’s smallest vertebrate, a tiny frog, no bigger than a five pence piece, named Paedophryne amauensi.

The collection of bright dots that make up this map of Europe represent the location of tweets and shared photos by over two million users of the social networking sites Flickr and Twitter.

In this month’s Focus, we predicted the biggest scientific breakthroughs of 2012. Unfortunately, to be involved with these important experiments you not only need an invitation but (more than likely) a PhD too.

NASA saw in the New Year with a successful mission to the moon. Over the weekend the agency’s two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes completed their three-month journey and began gathering data.

Get your hands on MIT’s new ultrafast camera and, according to its designers, anything in the universe can be viewed in slow motion, even the movement of photons through space.