MIT wants to task thousands of people with analyzing a 0.3-millimeter slice of mouse retinal tissue. Using a new site called Eyewire, MIT will ask users to track a neuron’s path by coloring in each axon (tendril). In the future, MIT will roll out another “game” which challenges users to find the synapses. The end result will be the connectome (a tome of connections) of the mouse’s retina…
Both installments of the Portal games have been lauded for the educational value of their physics-based puzzles, but now Valve is working to make education a more explicit goal of the games.
On June 22, Joystiq reported that Valve will be adding authoring tools to Portal 2, thereby making it possible for, say, instructors to create problems for their students so as to demonstrate physics concepts. Stayed tuned to the Portal web site for the upcoming release of these tools.
