Backyard Brains was excited to participate in this years “Mini-Maker Faire,” hosted by the Ann Arbor District Library in downtown Ann Arbor. We enjoy attending these events, as they are a great opportunity to see what other members of the community are creating! The crowd was a mix of children, students, teachers, makers, enthusiasts, and […]

I can see that you’re seeing a weird picture! :0 G’day, I am Nathan. I am a senior majoring in mathematical science and psychology in the State University of New York at Binghamton. Before continuing my study in the US, I worked for six years in IT and Finance after studying management and economics in […]

Hi everyone! My name is Christy and I will be a junior at Rice University this coming Fall. I am so excited and grateful to be part of the Backyard Brains fellowship program for this summer and will be studying longfin inshore squid hatchlings for my research project. At school, I am majoring in Computer […]

Can we enhance our learning and improve memory recall during sleep? Apparently, sleep does have secret powers! It has been recently discovered that such magic can happen through targeted memory reactivation during sleep. Studies have shown that by associating a sound cue while learning to perform a specific task, you can then play that cue […]

Hi! My name is Haley Smith and I just finished my senior year at Temple University where I studied bioengineering. I had an awesome first week at Backyard Brains, meeting all the fellows and familiarizing myself with the workspace and the BYB kits was a fun way to get started. I have extensive lab experience […]

Happy Memorial day! We hope that you are enjoying yourself on this day of remembrance. The 2017 fellows have survived their first, grueling week… their days were packed with excitement, learning, and planning! They’ve got a lot of work to do developing their research projects over the next several weeks, but this first week was […]

Since we opened our doors in 2010 with the $100 dollar spike, we’ve been working hard to create continue developing affordable, open source neuroscience experiments and educational materials. Seven years later, we’re excited to announce that we have exceeded $3,000,000 in sales! That is more money than the total of all of our grants prior […]

It’s early on a warm Ann Arbor morning and the office is buzzing with excitement! Our Summer 2017 research fellows are here! Today, our fellows are getting to know the staff and space at Backyard Brains, but more importantly, they’re planning, because for the next ten weeks they will be working on neuroscience and engineering […]

  Four more years… of Science! It is an exciting day at the Backyard Brains office! After much revision and consideration, we have secured further NIH grant funding to continue our development of neuroscience education tools and materials! If you are unfamiliar, the National Institute of Health (NIH) is a federal agency that is responsible for […]

On April 24, the co-founder of Backyard Brains, Greg Gage, returned to the TED stage to give another intriguing talk that included live scientific experiments: this time, he showed that plants, like animals, can use electrical signals to make rapid movements. If you missed it, you can see the TED talk here! Now, take a […]

Longtime Backyard Brains fans may recognize Pablo Guerra in the majority of our human interface videos. When not acting for Backyard Brains, Pablo Works as Electronic Music Artist, specifically, modifying electronic music instruments in a discipline called “Circuit Bending.” Circuit bending or also called “toy hacking” is the art of corrupting a musical toy from […]

Neuroscience is making its way across the globe! Recently, The Harvard South Asia Institute selected 25 young students of technology to participate in a two-week long workshop, introducing them to the excitement and interdisciplinary nature of neuroscience and engineering in Bangalore, India. Course managers included our longtime Harvard colleagues and scientists Venkatesh Murthy and Laura Magnotti , and during two weeks […]