The brain that revolutionized physics now can be downloaded as an app for $9.99. But it won’t help you win at Angry Birds.
While Albert Einstein’s genius isn’t included, an exclusive iPad application launched Tuesday promises to make detailed images of his brain more accessible to scientists than ever before. Teachers, students and anyone who’s curious also can get a look.
A medical museum under development in Chicago obtained funding to scan and digitize nearly 350 fragile and priceless slides made from slices of Einstein’s brain after his death in 1955. The application will allow researchers and novices to peer into the eccentric Nobel winner’s brain as if they were looking through a microscope.
After Einstein died, a pathologist named Thomas Harvey performed an autopsy, removing the great man’s brain in hopes that future researchers could discover the secrets behind his genius. Harvey gave samples to researchers and collaborated on a 1999 study published in The Lancet. That study showed a region of Einstein’s brain — the parietal lobe — was 15 p ercent wider than normal. The parietal lobe is important to the understanding of math, language and spatial relationships.
The new iPad app may allow researchers to dig even deeper by looking for brain regions where the neurons are more densely connected than normal, said Dr. Phillip Epstein, a Chicago-area neuro-scientist and consultant for the museum.
Proceeds will go to the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Md., and to the Chicago satellite museum, which is set to open in 2015.
--From wire reports