• The 2017 Summer Fellowship Concludes
    Education
    Over 11 sunny Ann Arbor weeks, our research fellows worked hard to answer their research questions. They developed novel methodologies, programmed complex computer vision and data processing systems, and compiled their experimental data for poster, and perhaps even journal, publication. But, alas and alack… all good things must come to an end. Fortunately, in research, […]
  • Changing Taste Perception with Optogenetics
    Education
    Hey everyone! My summer of research in Ann Arbor has come to an end and it’s been an awesome experience. It’s been a busy 10 weeks of making daily improvements to my rig, resoldering the flyPAD, collecting data, and presenting what I found to others. The original goal of this project was to see if […]
  • BYB Fellows Present at Research Symposium
    Education
    Today our Summer Research Fellows “snuck in” and presented their summer work at a University of Michigan, Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) symposium! Over the two sessions our fellows presented their work and rigs to judges, other students, to university faculty, and community members. Some of the fellows are seasoned poster designers, but others had […]
  • The Taste Preferences of Fruit Flies
    Education
    Hello everyone! It’s a been over a month since my project began on studying the diet and attempting taste manipulation of the Drosophila melanogaster. Before my experiments could begin I faced many software and hardware issues. The flyPAD itself is an extremely thin 0.6mm PCB board so every slight bend of it can result in […]
  • Optogenetics with the FlyPad
    Education
    Hey everyone! My name is Spencer and I just finished my freshman year at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada (yes, where the maple syrup and igloos are). I’ll be studying Neuroscience and Immunology there for the next three years. I’m originally from Vancouver but ended up all the way on the other coast to study […]
  • Welcome 2017 Backyard Brains Fellows!
    Education
    It’s early on a warm Ann Arbor morning and the office is buzzing with excitement! Our Summer 2017 research fellows are here! Today, our fellows are getting to know the staff and space at Backyard Brains, but more importantly, they’re planning, because for the next ten weeks they will be working on neuroscience and engineering […]
  • Lord of the Flies-Optogenetic Fruit Fly Conditioning
    Internship
    • August 5, 2015
    • by Greg
    You know what’s great about fruit flies? Nothing.                       fig. 1 Fruit flies suck Nothing, that is, other than their benefit as a model organism for simple and fast transgenic experimentation — but who really cares about all that. Drosophila melanogaster are butts, so what […]
  • Mind Control. With Lasers.
    Education
    • June 10, 2015
    • by Greg
    Coming soon to a backyard near you. At least, that’s the idea. We’re sure the technology will catch up if we give it enough prodding and throw an intern or two its way. And hey if not? There’s still lasers, sounds like a win/win to me. Wait we don’t get lasers either? This is really […]
  • Cort continues his Optogenetics Odyssey in this week's installment of
    Education
    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 […]
  • Meet the BYB Lab Tech, Jake! The Guy Behind the Guy, Behind the Guy
    Education
    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 […]
  • BYB Summer Camp Internships: Cort Turns Up for Optogenetics
    Education
    My name is Cort Thompson and I’m one of the incredibly privileged interns working at Backyard Brains this summer. I’m an undergraduate neuroscience student at Michigan State University and this summer I am working to bring the cutting edge technique of optogenetics to the classroom while also observing the courtship behaviors and gustatory system of […]