Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Help Cutting Edge Research...at Home!

I'm talking about gifted adults and kids participating in real, cutting edge research projects at home!

1. Eyewire.org

Lately, I've been helping the neuroscience folks at MIT map neurons in electron microscope scans of a mouse retina. Their artificial intelligence colors in the neurons as far as they can. The game at eyewire.org uses us "citizen scientists" to fill in the parts the computer missed. Anybody with an internet connection can help (though it does not yet work on the iPad or iPhones), and they are actively looking for ways to involve K-12 schools and students.

Sebastian Seung is the scientist in charge of that program. Here is a TED talk of his from a couple of years ago:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung.html

When you're playing eyewire, you'll see the 2D scan of the mouse retina on the right. Looks almost like a floor tile! On the left, you see a 3D model of the neuron within one cube. You use the up and down arrows to move from one tile within the cube to another. You can also double click on the neuron to look at the layer at that spot. Sometimes you can click in one spot the AI missed, and more neuron appears in the cube on the left than the computer was able to find. I love it when that happens!

2. http://fold.it/portal/
Some of the folks who play at eyewire also work folding proteins at foldit, but I never got the hang of that, personally.

3. National Geographic, Field Expedition: Mongolia

"This study aims to utilize modern non-invasive tools in the search for the tomb of Genghis Khan, thus shedding light on Mongolia's rich historical heritage and enabling conservation and education of this rapidly changing landscape."

http://exploration.nationalgeographic.com/

ah, social computation - aka, "hey, getting people to do this for us is a lot cheaper than doing hard programming" :-)

Sure, you could look at that way. But the day they write the computer program that can look at the cube and say, "Right there! There's a spot missing right there!" will be a sad day for me, personally.