Unit Ten Scientists.pptVIP

Unit Ten ScientistsClues to Einstein’s Genius Anatomical studies show a key part of his brain was unusually large Indicator of towering intelligence? Research on Einstein’s unique brain anatomy After sitting in pieces in a jar for more than 40 years, Albert Einsteins brain could make yet another contribution to science. Now scientists in Canada say they have spotted something that might explain the great theorists brilliance -- and might eventually offer clues to brainwork in general. They say a key region in Einsteins brain -- a region that processes mathematical thought, three-dimensional visualization, spatial relationships and other mental processes -- was significantly larger than the same area in people with normal intelligence. Known as the inferior parietal lobe, the region is situated about the level of the ear, starting in the front of the brain and extending about two- thirds of the way back. Research on Einstein’s unique brain anatomy In his life, Einstein submitted to brain studies, and at least one biography says he hoped his brain would be studied after his death. When Einstein died in 1955, in Princeton, N.J., a pathologist who performed the autopsy removed the brain and kept it when he left Princeton. According to several journalistic accounts, the pathologist, Dr. Thomas Harvey, kept Einsteins brain in a jar and at one time it sat in a cardboard box behind a beer cooler in his office in Kansas. Research on Einstein’s unique brain anatomy Harvey had permission from Einsteins estate and his son, Hans Albert, to conduct studies of the brain. Toward that end, he photographed and measured the brain and then cut it into 240 pieces of varying size for further study, but he published nothing of his findings. He did give a few sections of the brain to a few researchers, two of whom reported that Einstein had an unusual preponderance of certain brain cells, oligodendroglia, which support the brains networks of neurons. In 1996, though,