Here at Backyard Brains, we often get the question “Is that leg really still alive?” to which we respond “Why yes… that’s why you hear the Spikes”. The follow up question “How does it stay alive?” was often replied with similar authority: “They have tiny holes called spiracles that allow them to ‘breathe’ through their […]

Does the SpikerBox work on anything other than a cockroach leg? Yes, you can record from any invertebrate central nervous system but you often need a manipulator to accurately position your electrode. One of our users, Professor Walton Jones at the KAIST University in South Korea, recently experimented on the cricket cercel system. To those […]

Many users have e-mailed us, curious, bewildered, and frustrated by their lack of education in cockroach husbandry. We know, we know, some skills are just not taught in today’s educational system. But, in 100 words or less, here we describe how to take care of your humble cockroaches. 1. We prefer to buy small terrariums from […]

Blast you noise! Where do you come from! What do you want! Leave me alone! Sadly, to the neuroscientist, and indeed every scientist, noise is just a part of the natural world. But, since it is of the natural world, you can try to understand it, perhaps even reduce its effect on the phenomena you […]

Many people have asked us if the cockroach legs we cut off and use for our experiments grow back on the respective owners. That and “the cockroach leg is still alive when removed from the body?” are the two most common questions we get, from 5 year olds up to 80 year olds. After a cockroach […]

On July 20th and 21st, Backyard Brains ran part of the Health and Biomedical Engineering for Girls Camp, where, over the course of two days, 45 area high school girls learned about electronics and neuroscience. They built and soldered their own SpikerBoxes, and then used their new devices for their own neuroscience experiments. See below […]

Backyard Brains just returned from a packed trip to the Bay Area, where, among other things, the highlights included meeting the folks at MAKE Magazine. The night before our morning meeting, we were up late in the hotel making sure everything worked. Thankfully, everything was fully operational battle station, and we spent a good two and […]

Read an interview with UM senior Ahmed Suhaib that appeared in today’s issue of the Michigan Daily discussing Backyard Brain’s collaboration with the Biomedical Engineering Design Program to help design our RoboRoach. Stay tuned, as we work to bring you this and other exciting products in the near future!

Tired of having to dampen those sponges, and adding fresh potatoes for your cockroaches during these dry winter months? Well, this may be the solution for you. Here’s what you’ll need: Twine (We borrowed some from Colin Stoetzner’s science video art project) Shampoo/Mouthwash sampler bottle Pair of Scissors Cockroaches (Optional) Simply poke a hole in the top of the bottle, […]

ByB is back in Ann Arbor after a 1600 mile road trip to Boston and Ithaca to visit Harvard and Cornell. Our guest lecture for Professor Murthy’s neuroscience course went very well; in a first for ByB, the cigarette gatorade cricket ganglion experiment definitively worked! Too bad we weren’t recording the data. Tim put a […]

If you are in the Boston Area this week, come by Sever Hall, Room 202, at 2 PM this Friday the 20th, for a special lecture by ByB at the Neuroscience Course taught by Professor Venkatesh Murthy. Hecklers welcome, electronics heads even more (survey: what’s your favorite single-ended instrumentation amp?) Hope to see you there! And […]

Backyard Brains recently spent five days in Chicago for the Society for Neuroscience conference, which is the primo place to be to show off your latest discoveries on the workings of the mysterious brain. 30,000 people! and ByB is proud to say they were probably the first poster presenters since the annual meeting began in […]