With our impending (PAID!) Summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET), based on our previous successful Summer Research Fellowships, we wanted to highlight the successes of our pilot teacher for this upcoming program. Meet Jessica S., Neuroscientist, Plant Scientist, and Pea-Pod Costume Designer Extraordinaire! Jess participated in the Summer of 201’s undergraduate research fellowship as our first teacher […]

Hi I’m Yifan, a senior studying Computer Science at University of Michigan. I’m working on the Rainforest Wildlife Recording Project. This project is a continuation of 2017 fellow Zach’s Songbird program. Me and my teammates also worked on this during last semester, and will continue to improve it in the coming semester. We have […]

Fresh, organic, locally sourced meditation researchLast Friday, Backyard Brains once again opened our doors (even wider–they’re always open during business hours!) to our fellow and aspiring citizen scientists as a part of this year’s Ann Arbor Tech Trek!  Dozens of local tech companies had their doors open to the public that evening and we, […]

During experiments on the giant axons of the Longfin Inshore Squid (loligo pealei) at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA; we were fascinated by the fast color-changing nature of the squid’s skin. Squids (like many other cephalopods) can quickly control pigmented cells called chromatophores to reflect light. The Longfin […]

DESCRIPTION Update June, 2017: My paper was published! Check it out here in JUNE (Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education). … Why are grasshoppers so hard to catch?! I aim to study the neuroscience behind this question by replicating past studies on grasshopper vision. Grasshoppers can sense an approaching object and quickly hop away to avoid collision with the object […]

Welcome to the cockroach world!     My work for these five weeks was to develop a novel low-cost system to study the circadian rhythm of cockroaches. I’m working with my beautiful friends discoid cockroaches (B. discoidalis).     Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Welcome back, fellow Jelly-Lovers! We’ve got lots of exciting jellyfish-based updates below, including revealing videos of our very own clytia hemisphaerica, screenshots from and updates about the tracking software, and information on our new recording chamber. (And, of course, I have photos of the full jellyfish costume from the 4th of July!) Jelly Videos: As promised, we […]

So you’re trying to pick up Crickets? In this day and age there are services for everything; online dating for farmers, pastors, and anyone who’s looking for that special someone. Just nothing out there to help you find that very special cricket love. Well don’t worry, you won’t need a special site or even special skills!  […]

We are proud to have run many workshops in the Midwest, but co-founder Tim has longed to bring spikes to the Texas plains he recalls from his early years (he graduated from high school in El Paso and went to college in Austin). Thus, it was with great delight when Emily Verla Bovino, artist-in-residence with […]