English: Gold dust day gecko on a banana plant. Wikimedia commons, Thierry Caro

I have finally seen money come into my adsense account! I have >£2 (but < £3). In my quest for cash, I came across somebody recommending a site called webanswers, as one that give some (almost) instant gratification. A question is asked, it is answered by a few people, the whole thing is surrounded by ads, the site earns money from the ads. So I signed up.  The first surprise was that you had to answer 50 questions before they allowed you to link your adsense account. I managed to do this in a day, but it didn’t feel particularly pleasant. I answered a huge number of biology questions, I am sure that I was doing homework for a bunch of kids, still maybe the general public is truly interested in what are the steps to clone a human gene, and “what is restriction enzyme cleavage site”. I did get a couple of clicks and the corresponding increase in my adsense account after doing this. According to webanswers PR. active answerers can make $500 per month. We shall see.

In case you’re interested in trying out webanswers for yourself click this link:WebAnswers.com Yes it is another referral program, and if you join the site, and make money, they will pay me too (although not out of the money they pay you!). I guess you’re now sitting there thinking “why should I help Redundant Scientist, why should I do something which will give her money, but will do nothing for me. But just think, if you join their site, you can get your own referrals, and make money from people you refer. I think Karma is very important in cypberspace.

The other cool thing which I discovered recently is wikimedia commons. It’s great! so many beautiful photos that you can use for free (as long as you credit the photographer). The beautiful shot of a gold dust day gecko Phelsuma laticauda, at the top of the page, comes from them.

One of the webanswers question also got me looking into the genetics of cat coats.  I never realised how much was known about it.  Did you know that the colouration of siamese cats is due to a temperature sensitive mutation in the tyrosinase gene?  So that got me into writing about it on hubpages, illustrated by more lovely wikimedia commons photographs.