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So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction...

Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true!

Science Page July 2010

The Blue Brain Project

The Blue Brain Project is an attempt to simulate and model the processes of the human brain. It is currently focused on mimicking the neocortex, but the long term goals are to be able to model and simulate any function of any region of the brain. So, what does that mean in real terms?

From the outside, the human brain looks like undifferentiated spongy mass, but scientists realised long ago that different parts of the brains control different functions. This understanding came about due to changes in skills or personality that can be observed in certain types of brain injury. As well, a simple dissection of the human brain will reveal its internal structure to be very complex.

Phrenology was the no-science understanding of these observed facts. Phrenology thought that the size, shape and position of various structures of the brain affected personality and intellect. This was partly correct, and a huge step over the ‘four humours’ understanding of personality (see previous science page). However, it was still more pseudoscience than science. The gross physical structure of the brain doesn’t affect how brainy or artistic you are, unless there is major damage or malformation of the brain’s structure.

What structures the brain and its functions are the neurons and the various ways they are layered and connected, such as in the cortex. The Blue Brain Project is trying to develop a model of the mammalian neocortical column. A neocortical column is one of the most basic units within the mammalian brain, a collection of neurones that appear to respond to the same stimulus. The human brain has a huge volume of these columns.

This project isn’t aiming to develop artificial intelligence. That is another type of research. The Blue Brain project is modelling the physical structure of the brain, and not the human intellect. The human brain is so complex, that even now how it actually processes and stores information is only just beginning to be understood.

It you are interested in learning more, the title of this page is a hyperlink to the Blue Brain Project website.

*The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Lumsden Green

So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science?

Lynne Lumsden Green lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, and attends the University of the Sunshine Coast. Ever the perpetual student, she is adding a B.A. in Creative Writing to her B.SC. in Zoology (Jennifer Fallon is her role model). As one of the founding members of Scriber Space, the site for USC creative writers, she hopes to create a writing community as lively and as close as the Voyager writing community. She spends her non-study hours volunteering for writing-related events, writing, reading, and – oh yes – looking after her family. She is still passionately interested in anything and everything, and enjoys the opportunity to share this passion via the Science Page. Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, and all the Voyager authors are her favourite people on the planet...and one of her goals is to meet all of those authors, well, at least those authors still in the land of the living. Recently, her own writing efforts have been meeting with better success. She is putting this down to her excellent lecturers and persistence, and to the fact that you can eat chocolate while typing.

Read previous Sci-Facts

Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds!