News: 100 brains go missing from a university

Dozens of human brains seemed to be missing from a research lab at the University of Texas in Austin. One professor guessed students either pulled a Halloween prank or went looking for an odd home decoration in the form of formaldehyde-packed jars.

Turns out, the story wasn't so mysterious.

The university said Wednesday that environmental workers disposed of between 40 and 60 jars, some of which contained multiple brains, about 12 years ago after faculty members said they weren't in good enough condition for research or teaching.
The questions were promoted by a recently released book about a brain collection that the university received 28 years ago from the Austin State Hospital. The thought-to-be missing specimens were part of the original collection of 200 brains and had been stored at the campus' Animal Resources Center.
On Tuesday, psychology professor Tim Schallert, a co-curator of the collection, told the Austin American-Statesman it wasn't clear what had happened to about half of the collection. Fellow professor and co-curator Lawrence Cormack said it was "possible word got around among undergraduates and people started swiping them for living rooms or Halloween pranks."
The university then investigated. On Wednesday, the school said it couldn't provide a specific number of how many brains were destroyed. It also said a committee would be appointed to investigate the decision to destroy some of the brains and how all the specimens have been handled since the school received the collection.