Amy Robinson | TEDxNijmegen
Amy Robinson: Having fun, doing science
Yesterday during the Tweetup I spoke to Amy Robinson and asked her what she wanted the audience to remember from her talk. Here’s her answer and your take-home message: “The brain is a very complicated thing. You can however help us to fasten up the process of understanding as a non-scientist by joining EyeWire.” EyeWire is a game to map neural networks. Anyone can play, and you don’t need a scientific background. So, stop reading this blog and watch the video, which demonstrates how you can play the game.
During her lecture she explains that it takes a neuroscientist around 50 hours to map one cell, one neuron. And there are more than 80 billion neurons in one human brain. To complete the map of our brain they are looking for help to accelerate this process by crowd sourcing. Amy is asking us, citizen scientists, to contribute to the project. The EyeWire project is only 5 months old and has attracted already a lot of game players including a 15 year old boy from Bulgaria. And there is a lot more potential in the crowd since on average we spent 3 hours per week on gaming. If EyeWire would be one of those games, we contribute to science the same time. Amy: “Having fun while doing science”.