Greg Gage: The cockroach beatbox
TED Fellow Greg Gage helps kids investigate the neuroscience in their own backyards. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
how does the heart work,
cómo funciona el corazón,
una válvula que bombea sangre.
por dióxido de carbono. Así de fácil.
oxygen for carbon dioxide.
el cerebro es difícil de comprender
it's hard to understand
lo que es con sólo mirarlo.
at a brain and understand what it is.
No es una válvula ni una bolsa de aire.
not a pump, not an airbag.
sólo es un trozo de grasa.
in your hand when it was dead,
cómo funciona el cerebro
you have to go inside a living brain.
porque no es algo mecánico.
the brain is electrical and it's chemical.
100 billion cells, called neurons.
mediante la electricidad.
with each other with electricity.
entre dos células,
in on a conversation between two cells,
to something called a spike.
potencial de acción.
or your brain or your teachers' brains,
o de Uds., o el de sus maestras,
friend the cockroach.
very similar to ours.
a los nuestros.
funcionamiento de sus cerebros,
about how their brains work,
del funcionamiento de nuestros cerebros.
about how our brains work.
in some ice water here
Greg Gabe: Yeah ...
es que las estamos anestesiando;
they become the temperature of the water
así que toman la temperatura del agua,
so they just basically "chillax," right?
se relajan, ¿sí?
about what we're going to do,
una idea de lo que haremos.
para entender el cerebro.
to understand the brain.
has all these beautiful hairs
hay una célula,
that is going to send information
esta neurona envía información
atrapar una cucaracha, será difícil
it's hard because they can feel you coming
y empiezan a correr.
they start running.
comprimida al cerebro
this information up to the brain
con mensajes eléctricos.
with electronic messages in there.
introduciendo un alfiler justo ahí.
by sticking a pin right in there.
de la cucaracha
of a cockroach --
Uno de estos
this electric message is going by.
si Uds. pueden verlo.
let's see if you guys can see this.
en este invento que se nos ocurrió,
that we came up with
de un laboratorio de investigación,
equipment in a research lab,
in your own high schools,
y encender esto.
and turn this on.
(Sonido de neuronas en acción).
sound in the world.
is doing right now.
estos ruidos como de gotas de lluvia.
making these raindrop-type noises.
de cómo se ve un potencial de acción.
the axon looks like a spike.
looks like in just a brief second.
para obtener un promedio.
un potencial de acción.
That's an action potential.
in your brain doing this right now,
haciendo esto justo ahora,
estamos viendo, lo que estamos escuchando.
about what you're seeing, hearing.
toma información de vibraciones en el viento.
about vibrations in the wind.
and hear if we see a change.
si hay algún cambio.
if you hear anything.
with a little pen here.
con una pequeña pluma.
Llevó algún tiempo
in neuroscience to understand this.
Esto de se llama rango de cifrado,
más respuestas obtienes,
the more spikes there are,
Así es como se perciben las cosas.
is coming up to your brain.
con electricidad.
an experiment with electricity.
recibe impulsos eléctricos,
only taking in electrical impulses,
uno mueve los músculos.
algo con electricidad
something that's electric
I'm going to plug them onto the cockroach.
y conectarlos a la cucaracha.
y conectarlo a mi iPod.
I'm going to plug in into my iPod.
los auriculares en sus oídos?
work in your ears?
in your phone, or iPod, right?
o su iPod, ¿cierto?
a esos magnetos en sus auriculares,
into these magnets in your earbuds
para permitirte escuchar cosas.
and allow you to hear things.
that our brain uses,
"tipo de cambio" usado por nuestro cerebro
a la pata de la cucaracha. Si funciona,
en la cucaracha.
when we play music into the cockroach.
Ahí vamos.
¿Qué está sucediendo?
Se mueve con los bajos.
It's moving on the bass.
Si Uds. tienen de esos estéreos de auto geniales,
are the biggest speakers.
have the longest waves,
éstas ondas tienen la mayor corriente,
these things to move.
that are causing electricity.
(Golpe)
a alguien al escenario
another person out on the stage here
Aquí vamos. (Sonido beatbox)
happened in the history of mankind.
en la historia de la humanidad.
a la pata de una cucaracha.
think about neuroscience
y de cómo Uds. pueden comenzar la neurorevolución.
the neuro-revolution.
(Aplausos)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Greg Gage - NeuroscientistTED Fellow Greg Gage helps kids investigate the neuroscience in their own backyards.
Why you should listen
As half of Backyard Brains, neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage builds the SpikerBox -- a small rig that helps kids understand the electrical impulses that control the nervous system. He's passionate about helping students understand (viscerally) how our brains and our neurons work, because, as he said onstage at TED2012, we still know very little about how the brain works -- and we need to start inspiring kids early to want to know more.
Before becoming a neuroscientist, Gage worked as an electrical engineer making touchscreens. As he told the Huffington Post: "Scientific equipment in general is pretty expensive, but it's silly because before [getting my PhD in neuroscience] I was an electrical engineer, and you could see that you could make it yourself. So we started as a way to have fun, to show off to our colleagues, but we were also going into classrooms around that time and we thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could bring these gadgets with us so the stuff we were doing in advanced Ph.D. programs in neuroscience, you could also do in fifth grade?" His latest pieces of gear: the Roboroach, a cockroach fitted with an electric backpack that makes it turn on command, and BYB SmartScope, a smartphone-powered microscope.
Greg Gage | Speaker | TED.com