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. “I can’t wait to find out what they’ll discover,” said Steve Landers, a consultant for the National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago who designed the app. “I’d like to think Einstein would have been excited.” 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. “There will be another Einstein and we’ll do it like H.M.,” Annese predicted. For now, he said, it’s exciting that the Einstein brain tissue has been preserved digitally before the slides deteriorate or become damaged. The app will spark interest in the field of brain research, just because it’s Einstein, he said. “It’s a beautiful collection to have opened up to the public,” Annese said.
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.
“They didn’t have MRI. We don’t have a 3D model of the brain of Einstein, so we don’t know where the samples were taken from,” said researcher Jacopo Annese of the Brain Observatory at the University of California, San Diego. What’s more, the Einstein slides on the app represent only a fraction of the entire brain,
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