Thank you for sharing this. I think there is a yet-unfulfilled thirst for more structured information regarding the impact that can be made by those doing amateur science as a hobby. I do some coaching for individuals on the side and my clients who fit the HN reader profile almost always have "it's too late for me to become a scientist, isn't it?" really wedged in their belief system. Yet we have people like Koyama-san and other groups (SARA is one I recently found) really setting a great example for what amateurs can do.
