2mo ago

What is iNaturalist? The citizen science app playing an unlikely role in Erin Patterson’s mushroom murder trial

The world has been gripped by the case of Australian woman Erin Patterson, who was charged with the murder of three people after allegedly serving them a lunch of beef wellington containing poisonous death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides).
A new element of the sensational story emerged in court this week, when prosecutors reportedly alleged Patterson used iNaturalist to locate and visit places where death cap mushrooms were known to grow.

Biology @mander.xyz

Otter Raft @lemmy.ca

2mo ago

theconversation.com /what-is-inaturalist-the-citizen-science-app-playing-an-unlikely-role-in-erin-pattersons-mushroom-murder-trial-255714

11 comments

I use iNaturalist, but not for that
- Thanks for calrifying that. You had me going there for a moment. (/s)
- Heh yeah same. Totally
- I use it for mushroom ID...
Not available through F-Droid but is MIT licensed https://github.com/inaturalist/iNaturalistAndroid
- Holy shit I never knew that.
  I really thought it was one of my apps that I used that wasn't Foss because it was so useful.
  Now I want to use it more!
Slighty altered:
when prosecutors reportedly alleged the murderer used Google Maps to locate and visit places where handguns were known to be sold.
Sounds kinda dumb, doesn't it? Once again, a lesser known app gets a portion of the blame because of shitty people.
P.S. I use iNaturalist and greatly appreciate all the people who correct my identifications.
- a lesser known app gets a portion of the blame because of shitty people
  I feared the article would include something like that. Even trying to blame the distributed model (everyone can contribute) I guess.
  Did it say "if you're planning to kill your whole family, this is the perfect mushroom to add to the soup" or did it say "deadly, do not ingest"? If the latter, one could blame a "No Entry" sign for seducing people into entering dangerous places. One could go even further and blame the whole internet - or nature itself!
People prefer to trust stupid bots instead of trained human... These apps are great but you shouldn't rely on a bot for analyzing mushroom that you wanna eat.
Edit : Read the article in a hurry and didn't get the full story my bad
- Sounds like the app worked as intended and she found the mushrooms she was after.
  
  I should have read the article in more details and being focus thanks for the correction ^^'

11 comments