The first of my two news features about the Society for
Neuroscience annual meeting is now online. It's about a mini-
symposium called Low Cost Neuroscience for the Amateur, High
School Student, Undergraduate, and Public, held on Saturday,
November 12th. The symposium was chaired by Tim Marzullo, the
co-founder of Backyard Brains, a young company that makes and
distributes affordable neuroscience kits for students of all
ages. Their latest product, which they demonstrated at the
conference, enables students to use optogenetics, a state-of-
the-art technique in which neural activity and animal behaviour
can be manipulated with laser light. My article, Do-It-Yourself
Neuroscience, is online at the Dana Foundation website. I
interviewed Tim for the piece and the transcript is below. Ewen
Callaway also covered the optogenetics kit for Nature. Why did
you and Greg set up Backyard Brains? I had to go to grad school
and get a Ph.D. to study neuroscience. I'm crazy enough to want
to be a professional neuroscientist, bu