Internet Users Make 166,000-Neuron Fruit Flies Parallel Park and Solve Rubik's Cubes
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 15
Internet Users Make 166,000-Neuron Fruit Flies Parallel Park and Solve Rubik's Cubes
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 15
Summary
Google’s newly published map of a fruit fly’s 166,000 neurons has quickly been turned into simulations that parallel park cars, solve Rubik’s Cubes and dance to “Y.M.C.A.”
Mark Unthank, a developer in Italy, said his simulated fly learned to parallel park only after hundreds of failed attempts; he also programmed it to use turn signals.
The online projects are less about proving what real flies can do than about testing “the dumbest thing we can make it do,” with others imagining flies playing poker, blackjack and slicing doner kebab.
The brain map itself came from years of serious neuroscience work using advanced imaging, and researchers study fruit flies partly because their nervous systems are far simpler than humans’ 86 billion-neuron brains.