Pennywise, the dancing clown The newest addition to our mantis shrimp family is a gorgeous green-black Gonodactylus smithii named Pennywise. The Gonodactylus genus has been my fourteen-year-old brother’s favorite genus ever since I told him that it essentially means scrotum fingers, as the two raptorial appendages held at the ready take on a somewhat humorous shape. […]

Hello again everyone! It’s Yifan here with the songbird project. Like my other colleagues I also attended the 4th of July parade in Ann Arbor, which was very fun. I made a very rugged cardinal helmet which looks like a rooster hat, but I guess rooster also counts as a kind of bird, so that […]

Hey everybody, it’s your favourite Neurorobot project once again, back with more exciting updates! I went to my first knitting lesson this week at a lovely local cafe called Literati, and attended the Ann Arbor Fourth of July parade dressed as a giant eyeball with keyboards on my arms (I meant to dress as “computer […]

Hello! There has been some trial and error since my last update. I started my experiment with Monica Gagliano’s protocol (overly simplified!): Grow seedlings, 48 of them: Get them used to 8 hours of light, 16 hours dark (circadian rhythm): Train them under decision covers for 3 days: Test them She had 48 of them. Unfortunately, each of those […]

Hello, everyone! It’s Jess again. Since I last wrote, I have shifted all my work from cockroaches over to silk moths. I’ve had to make a few modifications to my protocols, but overall the transition has been smooth. Working with the silk moths has been far more enjoyable than the cockroaches (no offense roaches, but […]

Hello dear reader! It’s Maria again and my meditation project is picking up speed. I’ve now recorded ~brain waves~ from 20 different people! If I’ve learned anything so far, it’s that in science it’s data or bust. I’ve been soliciting people over email and clipboarding more than a Jehovah’s Witness. If this science thing doesn’t […]

One of the most attractive things about a BYB Summer Fellowship is the chance to spend a summer in colorful Ann Arbor. We changed the program name from an internship to a fellowship because of the lasting connections made throughout the summer, and these connections are made possible by the things we all do together! […]

Hello again! This is Anastasiya, and I’m here to tell you that there have been a LOT of developments in my project since we last spoke. For starters, we now have live jellies! And while that’s arguably the most important news, I also have updates on the tank setup, the custom jellyfish tracking software, and a […]

Hello! We are inching towards our goal of giving you a superpower! Last time, I was trying to find the mu rhythms, and I strongly think I may have found them. This consisted of two main steps. One was to find the right montage (electrode locations) which will help us see the mu rhythms. And […]

Is It Actually My Choice To Not Title This Post? Looking doubtful.   Since last I wrote about the “Free Will” project, I have increased the volume of data I have to work with and I have organized it into an intuitive MATLAB database for efficient manipulation via a set of functions for monte carlo analysis, spectrogram generation, […]

In my last post I claimed my tunnel was done and ready for testing, but boy was I wrong! I’ve spent the last week or so adding supports, finding a way to cover it to prevent the bees from escaping, covering the surroundings to eliminate landmarks (anything in the environment that lets bees keep track […]

I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hit me as hard as you can. What’s that? You want more background? Folks, things have started to pick up. Perhaps the most important development since June 11th has been the christening of our two mantis shrimp, which will give me an excuse to talk […]