July 2015
Intermediate to advanced
92 pages
2h 9m
English
Content preview from BioCoder #8
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Chapter 1. Homegrown Neuroscience: Backyard Brains and the RoboRoach
Is there a single development in the DIY realm cooler than the cyborg bug? There are certainly legitimate competitors: glowing plants, for example, and human cheese. But there’s something about seeing a big death’s head cockroach (B. discoidalis) outfitted with a minute, circuit board backpack and responding to cues from a human overseer via smartphone that makes your jaw drop. Could it be that our command of the entire insect kingdom is at hand?
Of course not. But it’s a damned neat trick nonetheless. What’s more, it’s one that any intelligent and inquisitive person with average digital dexterity can accomplish, thanks to the handy RoboRoach Surgery Kit from Backyard Brains, an educational products firm focused on DIY neuroscience.
The package, explains the company’s cofounder and engineer Tim Marzullo, contains the PCB back, which carries the Bluetooth low-energy wireless receiver necessary for smartphone communication; an assortment of resistors, capacitors, and light-emitting diodes; a small battery; and three sets of electrodes (sufficient to implant three cockroaches). Each electrode has three wires: one is used for the right antenna, another for the left antenna, and the third, functioning as the ground, is (gently) inserted into the dorsal surface of the insect’s thorax.
Cockroaches, says Marzullo, have neurons quite similar to that of human beings, just fewer of them. They cluster in decentralized ...
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