It’s been a long while since I made a post about anything but writing. Of course that will always be the main focus of the blog, but every once in a while I like to spice things up, and today’s topic is really cool! I thought a new development in neuroscience would really spice things up, and this article I read today is perfect for it.

https://www.science.org/content/article/complete-map-fruit-fly-brain-circuitry-unveiled

It’s an intricate map of a fly’s brain. Researchers were able to use electron microscopy to painstakingly scan every neuron and every synapse, mapping out almost a hundred and forty thousand neurons, the largest connectome to date! That picture above though? It’s only the largest fifty neurons! That should give some context for just how monstrously complex the project was.

The team that created this published a group of nine papers in Nature Magazine to much aplomb, for obvious reasons. They’re hoping it will guide the way toward bigger, better maps of more complex brains, and are already working on a Zebrafish connectome. The best part though is this:

https://flywire.ai/

All of the research is completely open to the public. They have tutorials aimed at high school and college students, a portal to download all their data, and you can even contribute to the project by proofreading the papers. Hopefully all the buzz around the achievement will help them secure more funding!

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley