Virtual fruit fly connectome put to work playing Doom and trading bitcoin
coherence · x · 2026-11-11
Scientists released the first detailed connectome of a male fruit fly's brain and nervous system in early September, mapping the shapes, sizes and connections of more than 166,000 neurons — the fourth such extensive fly map, built on two decades of work.
Once the dataset went public, the internet wired the virtual fly into assorted environments, from the video game Doom to bitcoin trading sites. Gerald Rubin of HHMI Janelia called it an unexpected but fun application that gives the public an entry point into complicated neuroscience.
More from Fun
- Gen Z has started calling the 1990s "the late nineteen hundreds" — AndyMasley · 2026-11-11
- Tell Claude Code to make your Mac faster — it finds 351GB of WhatsApp junk — nateliason · 2026-11-11
- Meme: While plague raged in Europe, Newton was just like 'haha colours' — miniapeur · 2026-11-11
- Alien asks to 'be real for a second', gets a mirrored-z joke — miniapeur · 2026-11-11
- Artist with disability releases his artwork as a dataset for anyone to remix — plzno1 · 2026-11-11
- Solo dev builds helicopter-vs-medieval-castle browser game entirely with Fable 5.2 — builderjaydub · 2026-11-11