iPad App Offers Detailed Images of Einstein's Brain 66
puddingebola writes in with news of a new app that might be of interest to those studying Einstein's brain, or just looking for something neat for Halloween. "Albert Einstein's brain, that revolutionized physics, can now be downloaded as an iPad app for USD 9.99.
The exclusive application, which has been just launched, promises to make detailed images of Einstein's brain more accessible to scientists than ever before.
The funding to scan and digitize nearly 350 fragile and priceless slides made from slices of Einstein's brain after his death in 1955 were given to a medical museum under development in Chicago, website 'Independent.ie' reported.
The application will allow researchers and novices to peer into the eccentric Nobel winner's brain as if they were looking through a microscope.
'I can't wait to find out what they'll discover,' Steve Landers, a consultant for the National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago, who designed the app, was quoted as saying by 'Press Association.'"
what is 'This BS' AC was quoted to say (Score:4, Insightful)
So this is an advert for a $9.99 iPad app?
I don't get it.
Why can't they give us the MRI image instead? (Score:1)
Why do they have to physically slice up Einstein brain?
We have PET scan, we have MRI, we have the technology to do virtual 3D slicing.
Why can't they give us the MRI or PET scan image of Einstein's brain instead?
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Because the slices of his brain were made soon after his death in 1955.
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So the images are out of copyright then? Who would pay for it?
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The slices were made in 1955. The scans were made recently.
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because PET and MRI didn't exist in 1955?
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Wouldn't it have been more useful to have scans of his brain when he was alive and thinking? I mean, Hannibal Lecter might have a use for this but who else?
Unfortunately we still haven't figured out how to build time machines, in order to get the modern scanners back in time to when Einstein lived. And then, how to scan his brain back then without altering the past.
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We have PET scan, we have MRI, we have the technology to do virtual 3D slicing.
Exactly! I just can't wait for the article titled "Neural correlates of perspective taking in the post-mortem Einstein's brain" [prefrontal.org]
(this is to say: what the hell is one expected to find in a brain dead for more than half a century?!)
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(this is to say: what the hell is one expected to find in a brain dead for more than half a century?!)
Something different to other "non-genius" brains that have been dead and preserved for a similar length of time. Such expectations may or may not turn out to be laughable but the original aim was not about expectations, it was all about data preservation.
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They had none of these when the images were made.
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Edit: When the slices were made, I mean.
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$9.99? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$9.99? (Score:5, Funny)
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Mod parent higher than it's current score +
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Mod parent higher than it's current score +
Don't be silly. It would take an infinite number of mods to pass the +5 singularity.
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What's more, the brain was supposed to be kept with the body per Einstein's wishes, and instead it was stolen and studied. I admit that would have been a shame to lose that information, but it was against the man's wishes.
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My outrage is mitigated by how poorly written the story is. I can't even tell if they're trying to make a profit, or trying to scrounge up funds to digitize the slides. Also, how incredibly pointless. We've got geniuses, living ones, dead ones, dying ones.. Ones we can run modern tests on after obtain modern informed consents. But, no, let's jump headfirst into dubious moral territory for an n of 1. Idiots
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Einstein is dead, he doesn't give a shit.
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Hence the GP wondering how Einstein "would feel" rather than how he "feels".
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They tried to brainscan Steve Jobs, but he's ego would no fit any MRI...
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designer weenies don't have much brains anyway. now the engineer behind Apple's success, that's another matter.....
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You of course are referring to Burrell Smith, right?
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It's pretty disgusting that you can monetize images of someone's brain. I wonder how Einstein would feel about that.
Well, he DID work at the patent office...
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It's pretty disgusting that you can monetize images of someone's brain. I wonder how Einstein would feel about that.
Well, he DID work at the patent office...
Yes, that's where he realized that everything is relative. If something to be patented was already known before, you just change the frame of reference to change the temporal order of events. :-)
if it's anything like the maps app... (Score:4, Funny)
...then I wouldn't rely on it too much.
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Or a hideously distorted rendering of them.
Veneration of the Saints (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even in the secular sector can people avoid their bizarre attraction to the macabre relics of mythically aggrandized heros.
GUI interface using visual basic to track... (Score:5, Insightful)
The application will allow researchers and novices to peer into the eccentric Nobel winner's brain as if they were looking through a microscope.
This summary's stated premise is so incredibly fucking retarded. Why not just post the slides online or release high-res formats, rather than charge a $9.99 premium for an application that displays images on a sub par interface for image manipulation and analysis? (rhetorical question) Aside from the press release FUD, can any researcher honestly tell me that the ability to view historical slides on an ipad is in anyway superior to the thousands of other mechanisms of viewing pictures of things?
There is no way in hell any tablet is going to provide a superior interface in terms of technology employed for viewing data of this sort for in-depth analysis.
As with much of the tablet market these days...gimmick after gimmick after gimmick. This. [wikipedia.org]
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iPad users will pay for it. The developers like that part ... the rest is not so important.
"Einstein's brain, that revolutionized physics..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how true that is. Not that this is his brain nor that he revolutionized physics. I just wonder if THIS is the brain that did it.
You see, London has a strenuous test for Taxi drivers. Their streets are not like New York, where many are numbered in sequential order and relatively easy to learn. London has 25,000 roads, with no real rhyme or reason, and perspective taxi drivers - to get licensed - needs to memorize them and takes several years. The test is called the Knowlege, iirc, and it takes an average of a dozen attempt to pass:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/12/08/acquiring-the-knowledge-changes-the-brains-of-london-cab-drivers/ [discovermagazine.com]
The hippocampus of these drivers is substantially larger and stay so throughout their working life. But it shrinks back down after retirement:
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/75th-anniversary/WTVM052023.htm [wellcome.ac.uk]
This is Einsteins brain after, what, 40 some years after his best achievement? Is it the same brain anymore? Wouldn't it be like poking at the Schwarzenegger's remains whenever he dies to see what makes a bodybuilder at his peak? Just something to ponder.
Re:"Einstein's brain, that revolutionized physics. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know what they'll discover. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Symbiotic alien larva is my hope.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Einstein's DNA (Score:1)
Has anyone tried to recover DNA from the preserved brain tissue? According to this article [howstuffworks.com] it was preserved in celloidin.
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Sorry to respond to myself, but the following article suggests it may be possible to recover DNA from celloidin-preserved brain tissue.
Shelf-Preservation: Researchers Tap Century-Old Brain Tissue for Clues to Mental Illness [scientificamerican.com]
timely (Score:1)
Wow, on /. only 48 hours after is was everywhere else.. maybe /. isn't over the hill yet. /sigh
Apropos... (Score:4, Informative)
This American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/167/memo-to-the-people-of-the-future?act=3 [thisamericanlife.org]
What happened to Einstein's brain after he died.
--
BMO
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And why does it cost actual money?
it's an app so that you can pay for it on impulse - and it costs money so that they can gouge money.
what? torrenting them for all mankind for free? but that wouldn't have paid for the consultant bill!
Got a spare smoke, mate? (Score:2)
what? torrenting them for all mankind for free? but that wouldn't have paid for the consultant bill!
If you have ever been a smoker you will know that complete strangers will approach you on the street and basically ask for a free cigarette, an equal number will offer to buy one. Sometimes I will share, particularly if I find the approach amusing or genuine, sometimes I won't simply because I'm not in the mood to be either bought or generous. The best recent approach I had was a young African guy in a nice suit coming from the direction of a big employment agency, he formally introduce himself and shook m
I apologize for my rudeness (Score:2)
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While what you say could be true in some circumstances, it seems pretty obvious that not everyone has the same abilities. Idolizing an ability in others that you yourself do not possess, seems to be something other than laziness.
Do the same to an iPhone? (Score:2)
The fragmentation of information (Score:2)
Information being published for a specific platform only is a deplorable development. In the PC era this would have been published as PDF and everyone could read it. These days, the desire to monetize information prompts publishers to package information as an application, excluding everyone who doesn't have the targeted platform.
This was bad enough when people repackaged a website as an app: one could just access the website instead. But books shouldn't be platform-specific.