The EyeWire Games

It’s coming. The first EyeWire competition: Facebook vs Reddit vs Google+ vs Team X (EyeWire Veterans). A race to trace four notoriously difficult starburst neurons.

Winner take all — that is, a neuron will forever be named in your team’s honor. The winning team also gets to choose a name for the neuron traced by the losing team. Neurons traced by teams coming in 2nd and 3rd will go into a lottery. Naming rights will be won by EyeWirers who play during the EyeWire Games. The more you trace, the higher your chance to win.

Why this epic geek throwdown? It wasn’t Nature or Huffington Post that crashed EyeWire. It was the Facebook Page “I F*ing Love Science.” TED did not send the most viewers to our blog. Nope, it was Reddit.

So we’ve decided to do something different: a competition where your team is the network where you discovered EyeWire.

Declare your team (bit.ly/declareyourallegiance) and recruit new teammates to sign up for EyeWire.

Official Contest Rules will be announced next week. The games begin in two weeks.

What’s in it for you?

Besides helping to map neural connections in the brain and specifically, the retina, the winning team gets a neuron named after them. Yes, there could be a Reddit neuron. Winning team gets to name the neuron that was traced by the losing team. You could, for example, name a neuron after the Facebook Page that sent you to EyeWire.

The other two cells will go into a lottery. Any EyeWirer who participates in the competition has a chance to win naming rights. The more you play, the higher your chances.  Details will appear in the Official Contest Rules.

…Have a great prize idea? Post it on our Facebook page.