When Cockroach Legs Dance; June 2012; Scientific American Magazine; by Rose Eveleth; 1 Page(s)

Name: Greg Gage
Position: Co-founder of Backyard Brains
Location: Ann Arbor, Mich.

When I was a graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Michigan, we would record the brains of animals and try to figure out what the brains were doing. At the same time, we were going into classrooms and teaching neuroscience to kids. Tim Marzullo—now my business partner—and I noticed that there was a big difference between what we were doing in the lab and what was being taught. They were using Ping-Pong balls and jump ropes to explain action potentials [electrical activity that occurs when neurons fire], but that’s so far removed from what is really going on in the brain.