Missing Brains Found

About 100 human brains belonging to a university collection thought lost have turned up at another campus.

kerry grens
| 1 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
1:00
Share

WIKIMEDIA, DRDAKDozens of human brains stored in a basement at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin had been missing for years. But recent media attention on the absent jars has helped resolve their whereabouts: UT San Antonio.

“They read a media report of the missing brains and they called to say: ‘We got those brains!’” Tim Schallert, the former curator of the Austin collection, told the Los Angeles Times.

The organs represent roughly half of a brain collection that had arrived at UT Austin a few decades ago from the Austin State Hospital. According to an excerpt from the book Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital published in The Atlantic this week (December 2), the brains got shuffled around because the center where they were housed at UT Austin became too crowded. But in the mid-1990s, when Schallert went to move them, the jars were nowhere to be found. “I never found out exactly what happened—whether they were just ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • kerry grens

    Kerry Grens

    Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.

Share
A greyscale image of cells dividing.
March 2025, Issue 1

How Do Embryos Know How Fast to Develop

In mammals, intracellular clocks begin to tick within days of fertilization.

View this Issue
Discover the history, mechanics, and potential of PCR.

Become a PCR Pro

Integra Logo
3D rendered cross section of influenza viruses, showing surface proteins on the outside and single stranded RNA inside the virus

Genetic Insights Break Infectious Pathogen Barriers

Thermo Fisher Logo
A photo of sample storage boxes in an ultra-low temperature freezer.

Navigating Cold Storage Solutions

PHCbi logo 
The Immunology of the Brain

The Immunology of the Brain

Products

Sapio Sciences

Sapio Sciences Makes AI-Native Drug Discovery Seamless with NVIDIA BioNeMo

DeNovix Logo

New DeNovix Helium Nano Volume Spectrophotometer

Olink Logo

Olink® Reveal: Accessible NGS-based proteomics for every lab

Olink logo
Zymo Logo

Zymo Research Launches the Quick-16S™ Full-Length Library Prep Kit