• SpikerBox Manuscript Published in PLoS ONE, freely available to educators/scientists everywhere
    Education
    We are pleased to announce that our manuscript formally describing the SpikerBox development, four experiments, and some classroom deployments, was released yesterday in PLoS ONE. Notably, this journal does not charge to view articles, so people anywhere around the world can download, read, use, and critique the work free of charge. How is this possible? […]
  • Backyard Brains 2021 AI Fellowship
    Fellowship
    Call for HS Teachers and Undergraduates in Biology, Engineering and the Arts: Calling all AI and neuroscience nerds (AND nerd wannabes): We are back!  After taking a hiatus due to a global pandemic, we are proud to announce that we are returning with a very special guest star: TinyML! Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) is a deep learning toolkit […]
  • Fresh, organic, locally sourced meditation research
    Fellowship
    After spending 24+ hours in a hot closet with strangers, I’ve learned a couple things. Walk with me (like lovers do) So far, I have recorded from a lot of people with a large range of experience levels in search for a biomarker for meditation- e.g. something more reliable than a person just “saying so” when […]
  • 2020 Summer Fellowship for 5-12 Grade Teachers
    Education
    New from Backyard Brains: An in-depth summer training experience to help bring NGSS-aligned neuroscience lessons into your classroom. Do you want to learn how the brains of animals like crawdads or praying mantises work? Do you want to develop your own innovative experiments to take back to your students? Would you like to learn to […]
  • The NeuroRevolution continues in Bangalore, India
    Uncategorized
    • March 9, 2017
    • by Greg
    Neuroscience is making its way across the globe! Recently, The Harvard South Asia Institute selected 25 young students of technology to participate in a two-week long workshop, introducing them to the excitement and interdisciplinary nature of neuroscience and engineering in Bangalore, India. Course managers included our longtime Harvard colleagues and scientists Venkatesh Murthy and Laura Magnotti , and during two […]
  • Backyard Brains Donates Neuroscience Gear to Science Fair Winners
    Uncategorized
    Many a high schooler has won a science fair or two using our neuroscience gear. But this science fair season, we decided to support the next generation of scientific innovators in a slightly different way: by donating prizes to the top projects at the Larchmont Charter High School Science Fair in Los Angeles! This event is […]
  • Teacher Feature: Jess S.'s Superb Teacher Research!
    Education
    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 […]
  • BYB at the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire
    Education
    Backyard Brains was excited to participate in this years “Mini-Maker Faire,” hosted by the Ann Arbor District Library in downtown Ann Arbor. We enjoy attending these events, as they are a great opportunity to see what other members of the community are creating! The crowd was a mix of children, students, teachers, makers, enthusiasts, […]
  • Brains! 7th Grade Teacher Training at UChicago Brings Neuroscience to Middle Schoolers
    Education
    This past summer, we worked with teachers and educators during a number of workshops to help empower them to bring DIY Neuroscience to their classrooms. One workshop, hosted by one of our colleagues at University of Chicago, brought Backyard Brains tools and training to 7th grade teachers in the Chicago area. Taken from the National Center […]
  • Our Wireless Human-Human Interface Enters 2022 Amazing Maker Award Contest (Help Us Win!)
    Hardware
    Picture this: you’re sitting in your bedroom in Germany, video chatting with a friend in South Korea over coffee. You sip your coffee and they have no choice but to sip theirs! That’s exactly what our new prototype, the Wireless Human-Human Interface, is about. It transmits biosignals from one person’s brain to the ulnar nerve in […]
  • Can First Responders Handle Stress Better? Teen Investigates and Wins Science Fairs Using Human SpikerBox
    Experiment
    Related Post: High School Students Publish a Paper on Plant Physiology in a Notable Journal It’s tested and proven: Paramedics, firefighters, police officers and other first responders are almost twice as likely to develop PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) at some point in their lives than the rest of us. Still, many of them are either unaware […]
  • Free Will Keeps Evading (But It Ain't Over Till the Encephalogram Sings)
    Fellowship
    —Written by Samuel Kuhn— These two photos just about summarize the past 5 weeks of searching for the Readiness Potential. I’ve hit a stone wall trying to replicate it so that it could bring me one step closer to understanding the free will phenomenon! I have been collecting EEG data just about every day trying to […]