Eye on the Triangle

Breyton Hill attends Brain Night at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. As she explores, she talks to researchers, volunteers, and community members all attending or tabling for Brain Night. Chris Smith, the museum's Coordinator of Current Science Programs explains more about what Brain Night is. The 2026 keynote speaker was Dr. Christa Baker and her postdoc, Dr. Alexandra Venuto, talks about their research in fruit flies. Attendee Zachary Henderson visited their table and shares what he learned. NC State University researcher Dr. Kurt Marsden shares about his work studying zebrafish and how they are surprisingly genetically similar to humans. Dr. John Meitzen's table always has real human brain specimens for visitors to hold. Julia Janosko shares how humbling it is to hold what was someone's consciousness in the palm of your hand. Emily Philips and Ranganath Gopalraj talk about the Neuroscience Club at NC State and how Brain Night is "their Super Bowl." Once again, Chris Smith leaves us with his favorite part of Brain Night: holding a real human brain and nerding out with experts.
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Creators and Guests

Host
Shradha Bhatia
Public Affairs Director (2025-2026)
Producer
Breyton Hill
Content Creator

What is Eye on the Triangle?

Eye on the Triangle is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2’s weekly public affairs programming with news, interviews, opinion, weather, sports, arts, music, events and issues that matter to NC State, Raleigh and the Triangle.

00:02
Shradha Bhatia
You are listening to Eye of the Triangle, WKNC's weekly public affairs program from the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Any views and opinions expressed during Eye of the Triangle do not represent NC State or student media.

00:34
Breyton Hill
Thank you for listening to WKNC 88.1. My name is Breyton Hill, and a couple of weeks ago I got to attend Brain Night at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. I spoke with expert researchers, volunteers, and people visiting in the community. Chris Smith, the coordinator of current science programs at the museum, tells us more about what Brain Night is.

00:54
Chris Smith
Brain Night is a signature part of the Science Cafe series at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. So on the third Thursday of every month, I invite a guest speaker to come into the museum and they share their science with us. We ask questions, people hang out in the cafe. It's generally a great time. But for Brain Night, this is our big night of the year because collaborators at North Carolina State University join with me to bring in dozens of exhibitors and hundreds more people, greatly expanding the reach of the night and sharing all of the incredible neuroscience research, brains, behavior, and all the ways that it's related to what's happening at NC State and connecting that with natural sciences that we do here at the museum.

01:39
Breyton Hill
The keynote speaker for Brain Night 2026 was Dr. Krista Baker of the Baker Lab at NC State. Her research focuses on auditory neurons in the fruit fly brain. I spoke with her postdoc, Dr. Alexandra Venuto, about the lab's research.

01:53
Dr. Alexandra Venuto
We look at acoustic communication in fruit flies. So you might not know that flies actually sing to each other. Their courting, specifically in melanogaster, which is like your traditional fruit fly, the male will sing to the female by vibrating his wings. And so what we have here today is when we shine red light on these flies, they're genetically engineered and modified to respond to that red light with various courtship behaviors like movement or movement of wings and things like that.

02:22
Breyton Hill
Zachary Henderson, an attendee of Brain Knight, visited the Baker Lab table and he learned.

02:28
Zachary Henderson
Well, I learned that fruit flies, well,. Certain types of fruit flies start walking. Backwards if you shine a red light on them. And that's pretty cool.

02:36
Breyton Hill
Another prominent figure doing neuroscience research at NC State is Dr. Kurt Marsden. I spoke to him about his research in zebrafish.

02:44
Dr. Kurt Marsden
One thing I think is surprising to a lot of folks sometimes is how similar fish are to humans. And so one of the main motivating factors for our research is to try and understand how human brains work and how human genes control how Human brains develop and how that might go wrong in different neurological or psychiatric conditions. But the zebrafish actually share 82% of disease causing genes with humans. So they are a really good model for trying to understand human genetics. And the fact that they are transparent when they're really small allows us to visualize and see how their brains are put together and see how those different genetic factors might cause brains to develop erratically and cause behavioral challenges like occur in humans.

03:32
Dr. Kurt Marsden
So that's our goal, is to really use the zebrafish to try and understand and find ways to improve human life. My lab at NC State has participated in the Brain Night event for seven or so years, excluding the COVID years. But we set up a booth where we show off some of the work that we do using zebrafish to study how the brain develops and controls behavior.

03:57
Breyton Hill
One of the main drivers and organizers of Brain Night is Dr. John Meitzen. His table every year brings real human brain specimens for visitors to hold. I spoke with Julia Janosko about the experience.

04:09
Breyton Hill
You are at the table that is holding brains tonight.

04:12
Julia Janosko
Yes.

04:12
Breyton Hill
How does it feel to hold a real. Real human brain in your hand?

04:16
Julia Janosko
I think if I were to describe it in one word, I would say it's really humbling because you're basically holding somebody's entire life in your hands and basically all of their memories on like a cellular and molecular level. Which I think like when you're thinking about the human consciousness is like a crazy concept to like have all the biological components in your hands. So yeah, humbling.

04:39
Breyton Hill
Also representing NC State at Brain Night was the Neuroscience club. Emily Phillips talks about what Neuroscience Club is.

04:46
Emily Philips
It's just an opportunity for students at NC State to get access to resources, events, guest speakers around the neuro community that they hadn't had before. We really only have neuro coursework as an option for students interested in that field. So I really wanted to bring something to the campus community that provided more resources to them. Something super unique that we do is were actually the first club on campus to bring students into labs on campus where they can interact with PIs and learn more about ongoing research. We've actually had a couple students matriculate into research positions through that and a couple clubs have also picked up that as well. So it's been really cool.

05:23
Breyton Hill
Also with Neuroscience Club was Ranganath Gopalraj and he said it best.

05:28
Ranganath Gopalraj
It's kind of like our Super Bowl.

05:30
Breyton Hill
Basically it's our biggest event of the year that we take part in. And finally we have Chris Smith with his favorite part about Brain Night.

05:38
Chris Smith
Okay, trying to pick my favorite part of Brain Night is tough because it's such a great night. I mean, having hundreds of people come into the museum to do any of our programming is fantastic because it means we're reaching people. They're taking in science and nature and learning about what's happening in their community here in North Carolina. That's pretty special. My favorite thing about Brain Night, though, holding real human brains. It's got to be NC State, the Meitzen Lab, they do such a fantastic job of using these specimens to educate people about the brain. And there really is something incredible about getting to hold just a few pounds of that gray matter and imagine that all of someone's thoughts, imaginings, and life history is sort of stored and generated from that organ. That's very special.

06:32
Chris Smith
And then to have the science surrounding that experience at Brain Night, where you can learn even more about it, you really get to dig in. That's really special. And it's something that really only happens here at the museum at Brain Night in the year. Another favorite thing, though, is that I'm a nerd and I like being around experts. And so when we actually do the Science Cafe program and the guest speaker, the keynote for the night, gets up on stage and they start really diving in on their specific piece of the brain and brain science and the insights that we're getting from it and the way that it changes our perceptions of the world around us. Learning about our own brains and about the brains of other organisms, it gives us unique insight into the world and how things just operate around us. Right?

07:23
Chris Smith
Brains are it as far as that goes. So hearing from experts who are diving in, going real deep, but doing it in a way that engages people, that gets us thinking and gets us seeing the world in a new light, I mean, that's incredible.

07:38
Breyton Hill
In summary, I think that we can say Brain Night 2026 was a huge success. Join the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science and NC State University next year for Brain Knight 2027. This is Breyton Hill signing off. You're listening to WKNC 88.1. Cheers.

08:04
Shradha Bhatia
This has been Eye on the Triangle from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh. Our theme song is Krakatoa by Noah Stark, licensed under Creative Commons. To relisten to this or any other episode, visit wknc.org/podcast or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening.