Tim recently taught the Neurophysiology Section of a Biomedical Engineering Course, “Quatitative Physiology,” at the University. Notably, this was the first time ByB did its cricket ganglia nicotine experiment in a public setting. Did it work? Maybe…the smooth metal of the desk table made the manipulator very slippery with its brick support, and holding onto […]

ByB applied last week to the second stage of the Zell Institute Dare to Dream grant. This grant, should we get it, will give us some funds for our initial runs of SpikerBoxes (stay tuned…we are close to final production). The grant, run every school semester by the UM Ross Business School, has three stages, […]

Concentrate Media, an Ann Arbor business magazine, recently interviewed Greg about ByB. You can read the article here. Note: The opinions of Greg Gage do not represent the opinions of ByB. We acknowledge that insect brains and human brains are different. Brief Primer for the newbies -Insects don’t have mylein sheaths on their axons. -Insects […]

We have good versions of our Ganglionizer (micromanipulator) and SpikerBox (amplifier), but the missing component for in vivo ganglia experiments is an inexpensive microscope. ByB saved its lunch money and recently purchased a 30X dissection scope for $60 from Benz Microscopy. Having no background in optics, ByB is rolling up its sleeves and reverse engineering […]

ByB has had magnificent success using Audacity to view and record their neural data, and Tim has begun thinking about modifying Audacity to contain a digital oscilloscope mode. Here is what he wrote to the Audacity team: Hi folks, I just sent an e-mail regarding getting Audacity to work on the OLPC (one labtop per […]

While Greg and Evan have been working on modifying the Measure program on the OLPC (one laptop per child) in order to view and store neural data (the current build can’t store data, and it needs a trigger function and better visualization), Tim has been experimenting with the Audacity program. This is the same program […]

Tim Marzullo, co-founder, received a phone call last week (while on his bike) that he will be funded for a year to grow Backyard Brains. Thanks to the Kauffman Foundation and the Michigan New Economy Initiative for believing in us!

While Tim was on a roadtrip for an interview with the Kauffman foundation, he made a pit stop in Salt Lake City to visit some friends at Ripple. While we at Backyard Brains pride ourselves on our single channel neurophysiology, the engineers at Ripple are designing a >1000 channel neurophysiology system! We picked their brains […]

You spoke; we listened. Version 3 of the SpikerBox is complete and fully operational. New features include: built-in Speaker, Gain Control, rapid switching between audio and recording mode, and three standard outputs: BNC, mini-stereo, and RCA. We have a couple more improvements (smaller size, smaller batteries, etc) to make, but stayed tuned. We foresee Version […]

We currently have used American Cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) in our experiments, but we have to order them from Carolina Biological Supply in North Carolina, and they are a bit expensive due to live animal shipping charges. No angst towards that fantastic company, but we have been looking for a local supplier that can give us […]