The Texas Senate is turning to crowdsourcing to open up the legislative process and make it more inclusive. A recent Gallup Poll indicates that congressional job approval for September stood high at 15 percent, a clear indication of America’s continuing frustration with the U.S. economy and state of the nation.

The European Space Agency has had its first success in its latest scheme to map and study the heavens. Its Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program has found its first Near-Earth Object, an asteroid, all thanks to an online community of volunteers.

Can crowdsourcing really aid in the advancement of major corporate bodies? Not too long ago, Canadian airline Westjet enlisted the services of Spigit, the social application designed for the development of crowdsourcing ideas throughout corporate organizations. The airlines aim in doing so, being to improve product development, and to help cut company costs.

DesignInArk.com is offering artists and designers a chance to play a major part in the 2020 Olympics: they have just announced a design contest to define a logo concept for the Games. The contest, which will run until midnight October 23, is a way for the design site to get in on the action in case the cities of Rome or Tokyo are chosen to host the XXXII Olympiad in 2020.

A retired mechanical engineer’s “airbag vehicle design” clinched the cash award for the Open Innovation Pavilion on InnoCentive, launched by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in collaboration with the Wright Brothers Institute.

Olympus, the camera and optical equipment firm, is employing crowdsourcing in its latest marketing campaign. The American branch of the multi-national firm is working in partnership with ad agency Mullen to create a crowd of ambassadors for the new Pen camera range.

YouTube and NASA are joining forces to spearhead a venture which is quite literally out of this world. The project, in the form of a competition called Space Lab, is currently open to all 14-18-year-old scientists with the right intellectual mind-set. The budding scientists are encouraged to upload videos of their homemade experiments to YouTube, which will stream them live. The prize, awarded to two lucky winners, is the chance to test their own notions 250 miles above the Earth’s surface.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to gain momentum, two crowdsourcing organizations have joined the initiative and are using their expertise to spread the message to ensure it cannot be ignored. Kickstarter, a crowdfunding site, has provided financial backing through pledges from the public to publish The Occupied Wall Street Journal. EpicStep, a company that creates billboards raising social awareness, bases its billboard decisions on voting by the public. They have promised to donate a billboard to Occupy Wall Street if enough people vote for it.

The Guardian, a national British newspaper, will be one of the first national papers to implement a major editorial change. On Monday morning the newspaper plans to crowdsource aspects of its editorial policy, which could be the starting point of change in the way national news is reported.

The White House recently held an open dialogue online to allow citizens to make comments and discuss ideas as part of a scheme to improve the efficiency and helpfulness of government websites.