A Message from Sebastian Seung

Sebastian Seung announces J-Day, the official launch of EyeWire coming December 10th.

We created EyeWire with the conviction that anyone, anywhere, should be able to participate in the greatest adventure of our time: exploring the brain. Thank you for being a pioneering member of our community, and helping our developers steadily improve EyeWire, making it easier to use and more fun to play.

We are finally ready for our official launch, and are excited to announce that December 10th will be J Day. We will begin to map the connections of the J cell, a particular type of retinal neuron. The larger and more active our community, the faster we will complete the mapping, and make exciting discoveries about how the retina functions in visual perception.

Here’s a short video with more info.

In preparation for J Day, we ask that you do two things:

• Persuade three friends to register as EyeWire members. You could do this in many ways — share our fun 1 minute trailer video over email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The new social sharing buttons on the site will also come in handy.

• If you haven’t already, make sure to complete the tutorial before J Day on December 10th. Then you’ll be ready to participate in the science.

Thank you for allowing me to share my passion for the brain!

Sebastian Seung

P.S. Save the date! Join us for a pre-launch Google+ Hangout on Saturday, December 8th at noon EST. More details will follow. And don’t forget to check out the EyeWire Blog and join the conversation on Facebook.