functions like conscious thought, and contains 10,000 neurons in the rat brain (and 108 synapses). In November 2007, the project reported the end of its first phase, delivering a data-driven process for creating, validating, and researching the neocortical column. An artificial neural network described as being "as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain" was run on an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer by the University of Nevada's research team in 2007. Each second of simulated time took ten seconds of computer time. The researchers claimed to observe "biologically consistent" nerve impulses that flowed through the virtual cortex. However, the simulation lacked the structures seen in real mice brains, and they intend to improve the accuracy of the neuron and synapse models. Mind uploading Mind uploading is the process of scanning a physical structure of the brain accurately enough to create an emulation of the mental state (including long-term memory and "self") and copying it to a computer in a digital form. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information processing, such that it would respond in essentially the same way as the original brain and experience having a sentient conscious mind. Substantial mainstream research in related areas is being conducted in animal brain mapping and simulation, development of faster supercomputers, virtual reality, brain–computer interfaces, connectomics, and information extraction from dynamically functioning brains. According to supporters, many of the tools and ideas needed to achieve mind uploading already exist or are currently under active development; however, they will admit that others are, as yet, very speculative, but say they are still in the realm of engineering possibility. Auxiliary sciences of neuroinformatics Data analysis and knowledge organisation Neuroinformatics (in context of library science) is also devoted to the development of neurobiology knowledge with computational models and analytical tools for sharing, integration, and analysis of experimental data and advancement of theories about the nervous system function. In the INCF context, this field refers to scientific information about primary experimental data, ontology, metadata, analytical tools, and computational models of the nervous system. The primary data includes experiments and experimental conditions concerning the genomic, molecular, structural, cellular, networks, systems and behavioural level, in all species and preparations in both the normal and disordered states. In the recent decade, as vast amounts of diverse data about the brain were gathered by many research groups, the problem was raised of how