The University of Texas at Austin is missing about 100 brains — about half of the specimens the university had in a collection of brains preserved in jars of formaldehyde.
One of the missing brains is believed to have belonged to clock tower sniper Charles Whitman.
“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, told the Austin American-Statesman (http://bit.ly/11R7vym ).
His co-curator, psychology Professor Lawrence Cormack, said, “It’s entirely possible word got around among undergraduates and people started swiping them for living rooms or Halloween pranks.”
The Austin State Hospital had transferred the brains to the university about 28 years ago under a “temporary possession” agreement. Schallert said his psychology lab had room for only 100 brains, so the rest were moved to the basement of the university’s Animal Resources Center.
“They are no longer in the basement,” Cormack said.
http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/weird/2014/12/02/about-100-brains-missing-from-university-of-texas/19811083/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wtsp%2Fweird+%28WTSP.com+10+News+Weird+News%29
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Project1Jean Beliveau just died, and Gordie Howe had a stroke!
These were the hockey greats that I watched when I was a kid!
We get too soon old, and too late smart!
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Another reason why I keep saying the United States is going to hell in a hand-basket!


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untitledA new frog species has been found that ranges from Connecticut to North Carolina and emits a distinct call that sounds more like a cough than a croak. The find not only welcomes a new frog to a life of recognition and a fancy classification name, but it also confirms claims of its existence that had long ago been discounted.

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The ancient, big-bodied relatives of modern-day humans not only ate freshwater shellfish, but engraved their shells and used them as tools, a new study finds.
COVER-N6newResearchers in Java, Indonesia, discovered engravings on a shell that dates to between 540,000 and 430,000 years ago.
The ancient artwork could be the oldest known geometric carving made by a human ancestor, the researchers said.
It’s unclear what the engraving — a series of slashes and an “M”-shaped zigzag — means, but it could indicate that Homo erectus, the ancestor of modern humans, may have been smarter than was previously thought.
“We as humans tend to be a bit species-centric — we think we are so great and they must have been a bit more stupid than us, but I’m not sure,” said the study’s lead researcher, Josephine Joordens, a postdoctorial researcher of archaeology at Leiden University, in the Netherlands. “We need to appreciate the capacities of our ancestors a bit more.”
images(Meanwhile, the oldest know fertility figure is from the south of France and dates back 50,000 years. -Ed.)
The researchers studied 166 shells that were excavated in Java in the 1890s but are now stored at the Naturalis museum in the Netherlands.
untitledOne of the shells has a smooth and polished edge, suggesting it may have been used as a tool for cutting or scraping.
Another shell, the one with the engraving, was likely carved with a sharp object, such as a shark tooth, the researchers said.
Then, just a few decades years ago, in our half a million year odyssey, “ART” finally developed to the point where it achieved some semblance of sophistication!

http://www.livescience.com/48991-homo-erectus-shell-tools.html
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Hey! Wanna buy an ugly sweater?

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