OK,
this is just a little too strange to ignore.
A
while back, the University of Texas in Austin reported 100 brains
have gone missing.
That's
about half of the university's collection of brains that were
preserved in jars of formaldehyde and used for a variety of studies.
This
opens up a whole universe of questions from who took them to why did
they take them?
Why
would anyone want one brain in a jar let alone 100?
I
know people like to collect things – I have several old tools
mounted on the wall of my man cave – but I have never thought I
needed a brain collection.
What
would you do with them? Put them on the mantle? Perhaps on the coffee
table as a conversation piece – a conversation that I hope would
include the recommendation to interact with a mental health
professional.
But
wait, that is not all.
The
university is home to some of the greatest minds alive today, and
this is what one of those great minds had to say about it:
“We
think somebody may have taken the brains, but we don't know at all
for sure," psychology Professor Tim Schallert, co-curator of the
collection said.
You
think somebody may have taken the brains!
What
do you mean, you think someone took the brains?
If
no one took them, what the hell happened to them?
Did
they some how come back to life and figure out how to get out on
their own? If so, there are a lot of people in Ottawa who could use a
method of bringing their brains to life.
Is
this some weird horror movie coming to life: Night of the Bottled
Brains, Attack of the Fermented Gray Matter, Charge of the Contained
Craniums?
I
am no detective, or a high-IQ professor type (or even a high IQ type
in any capacity for that matter), but even I can figure out someone
took the brains and I have never even been to Texas.
His
co-curator, psychology Professor Lawrence Cormack suspected undergrad
students may have liberated the brains from the facility for
Halloween or other juvenile reasons.
Now
that makes much more sense.
Of
course, there is always the Frankenstein monster scenario where
undergrads are regenerating their own creatures made of accumulated
body parts and needed a brain to complete the set, but I highly doubt
it.
Following
an investigation, school officials determined it was youthful
adventure by high-IQ, low common sense students who did it for a gag.
And
yes, some of those students were displaying the brains in their dorm
room as a conversation piece.
“Here
at Ima Laimo Dummo, we not only have a great fraternity, we have an
awesome collection of jarred brains.”
To
prevent further cranial misadventures, the remaining 100 brains were
being moved to a different location in the hopes they will not wander
away like the others.
OK, so we solved the mystery if the
missing brains, but I have one more question: why did it take so long
to notice?
You have 200 brains – which is a lot
of brains – and 100 go missing, don't you think someone would have
noticed sooner.
You would think around the 50-brain
mark, one of the high IQ types would have looked at the menagerie and
thought, “Hmmm, our brain collection seems a little light. I better
take a look.”
Instead, a full 100 brains had to go
missing before someone noticed and sounded the alarm.
But, at least the case is closed and we
don't have to worry about a bunch of brains running amok –
especially in Ottawa.
Copyright 2016, Darren Handschuh
No comments:
Post a Comment