On January 1st, we received a New Year’s gift from another continent: Neuroscience tools and experiments made by a group of high school students selected from the 20 best rated schools of Iran. They were written lab reports, submitted for an interdisciplinary neuroscience competition that utilized our open source experiments with cockroaches as a resource […]

This past August, we were graciously invited by ZAST (Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology) to come to China to give a series of workshops and talks in Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai at the various impressive science museums there. Similarly to the United States, Neural Engineering is a relatively new discipline for the public, and […]

**Edit: This design is no longer available as of 2020** We at Backyard Brains love cockroaches. Every time we see someone with butterfly earrings or a butterfly tattoo, we think, “That would look so much better if it were a cockroach. Pobrecita Cucaracha. Nobody celebrates you.” No more, you can now show your love of insects […]

Meet the EMG Reaction Timer! The EMG Reaction Timer will settle once and for all who has the fastest draw in the west… or you can use it to perform neuroscience experiments, in the home or classroom, exploring how we respond to different kinds of stimuli! The Reaction Timer works with our EMG SpikerBox and Spike […]

Hello loyal subjects!  Your Scorpion King is back with another update. First I’ll some news from the homeland-more scorpions have joined the family!  There are now a pair of Red Claw scorpions (named for their large, reddish tinted claws) among my 8-legged roommates. Dinner time! Here’s a video I got of my Red Claw chowing down on […]

Hello, again. I’m Cort, the fly guy (I also do research with fruit flies) at Backyard Brains. Since the last time I posted I’ve made significant progress in my research! IT WORKS!!! In the above video what you’re seeing is one of the flies I’ve bred having its proboscis extension activated with an LED. Optogenetics works! Now […]

Hey, it’s Olivier*! Since I last posted a few developments have occured. First off, I have excelled in the surgical prep portion of my project so much so that I am able to perform two surgeries within the span of an hour and then I can give them a two hour rest so that I […]

In March 2014 we went to Mexico’s first Maker Faire, invited by Amor Muñoz, a Mexican Textile and Electronic artist, who we met at Chile’s Santiago MakerFaire in November 2013. The Mexico MakerFaire took place in Oaxaca, a place known for traditional crafts, pero ahora se esta transformando en un lugar de “Nuevos-Makers” de diseño, […]

Hey, it’s the other intern, Marta. I’m the one that has been performing experiments on the circadian rhythm of the cockroaches. It’s like Sleeping Beauty, but with cockroaches! The last time I wrote a blog, I was using the Blaberus Discoidalis, but because the Periplaneta Americana deemed to be the better choice, since “they’re more […]

My name is Jake Robbins and I have been working behind the scenes here at Backyard Brains this summer as a lab tech. I recently graduated from Novi High School, and will be attending Michigan State University this fall. My job at Backyard Brains has mostly consisted of working on much of the software coding […]

PEPPERMINT IS THE NEW VANILLA: CHANGING OLFACTORY MEMORIES THROUGH OPERANT CONDITIONING IN COCKROACHES (my working paper title, you dig it?) Hey all, it’s Alex again! I have completed quite a bit since my previous post. If you already forgot about who I am (you monster!), I’m the intern performing the operant conditioning research on cockroaches! I’m […]

Hello, my name is Olivier and I am a junior in neuroscience at Michigan State University, but for the rest of the summer Ann Arbor is my home as I work on a research project as a Backyard Brains intern! My goal is to improve upon the roboroach by adding further directional control. Left and […]