Dec 16, 2019

Dr. Tim Marzullo is an engineer and co-founder of Backyard Brains, which seeks to develop technologies to make learning about neurophysiology easy and fun. In this episode, he discusses some such technologies at SfN Neuroscience 2019.

Top three takeaways:

1. Backyard Brains creates scientific technology that can be easily used by high school students to learn more about science (and win science fairs😊)
2. Recent technologies have taught us that there is a whole molecular and electrical world within plants that has not been fully realized until recently
3. Thanks to technology such as the Arduino microcontroller, one does not need specialized training in Matlab or LabVIEW to learn and investigate neurophysiology

[0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Tim Marzullo, at SfN Neuroscience 2019

[1:15] Dr. Marzullo gives a background on Backyard Brains and an example of an invention they are developing involving a Venus Flytrap

[4:30] Dr. Marzullo discusses the learning curve of this technology and the level of difficulty involved in learning how to use it

[7:15] The use of this technology by graduate and PhD students is discussed

[10:30] There is a whole molecular and electrical world going on inside plants that had previously been thought of as static beings, and is only now beginning to be explored and appreciated

[12:30] Someone at Backyard Brains had recently attached 9 electrodes to himself and played World of Warcraft, in order to test out muscle-electrode interfaces

[14:00] Thanks to the easy-to-use Arduino microcontroller, it is getting easier to investigate neurophysiology