User:Kleinhern/KnowingNeurons

Knowing Neurons

Knowing Neurons is a neuroscience education website created in 2012 by PhD graduate students at the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The website features regular content focused on elucidating fundamental neuroscience concepts, new research, and current hypotheses. Special series featured on Knowing Neurons include the weekly 52 Brain Facts infographics than ran from 2015 to 2016 and the series Weird Animal Brains on comparative neurobiology that debuted in 2016. Most content on Knowing Neurons is in the form of articles, infographics, book reviews, and interviews with prominent neuroscientists. Knowing Neurons has also produced several YouTube videos, including interviews with several people with synesthesia and an animated video This Is Your Brain on Music narrated by actor Bob Turton. In July 2016, Knowing Neurons participated in a NASA Social event at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the arrival of the Juno space probe in orbit around the planet Jupiter. Coverage of the event by Knowing Neurons compared the technologies used by Juno's instruments to those used in neuroimaging techniques such as magnetoencephalography. In 2016, several Knowing Neurons team members were recognized for their contributions to science education through the website with the Society for Neuroscience Next Generation Award.

Team
Knowing Neurons was founded by editor-in-chief Kate Fehlhaber, a neuroscience PhD student at UCLA researching visual processing in the retina using electrophysiology. Dr. Jooyeun Lee, a neuroscientist who received her doctorate from USC, is senior graphic designer and has designed many of Knowing Neurons' infographics. Joel Frohlich, a neuroscience PhD student at UCLA, is senior editor and a regular contributor for Knowing Neurons. He is also an expert blogger for Psychology Today. Other current team members include contributing editors Anita Ramanathan and Jennifer Tribble, content editor and visual designer Kayleen Schreiber, and social media marketing manager Pratichi Dixit. Dr. Jillian L. Shaw served as senior editor for the website until 2016.

Knowing Neurons frequently features content by guest contributors, many of whom are neuroscience PhD students or postdoctoral researchers.

Infographics


Knowing Neurons is perhaps best known for their infographics created by Jooyeun Lee and Kayleen Schreiber. These infographics have focused on a wide variety of topics in neuroscience, including CRISPR, self-organized criticality, and Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. Special series of infographics produced by Knowing Neurons include 52 Brain Facts and Weird Animal Brains. 52 Brain Facts presented a new fact about the brain each week for 52 weeks from September 2015 to September 2016. Facts are presented on the website in a 'myth or fact?' format, such as "Myth or Fact? One region of the brain sets us humans apart from other species." The preceding infographic then serves to either debunk the myth or confirm the fact.

Awards
In 2016, Knowing Neurons team members Kate Fehlhaber, Joel Frohlich, and Jooyeun Lee received the Society for Neuroscience Next Generation Award for their contributions to public neuroscience communication, outreach, and education through Knowing Neurons.

Partnership with Aeon
Knowing Neurons has been partnered with digital magazine Aeon since 2016. Aeon features selected articles written by Knowing Neurons writers on Aeon.