The Great Physicist Albert Einstein may have been brilliant for biological reasons.
It is estimated that someone with Einstein's cognitive powers emerges only 500 years or so, but with the capability to clone humans on the horizon, perhaps within our lifetime, the technical ability to clone even an army of Einsteins is truly in the realm of science fact, and not science fantasy.
So, what made Einstein different than you and I?
When Albert Einstein was born, his parents knew something was unusual, perhaps even defective, because of the odd, distended shape of his skull. Upon Einstein's death in 1955, an autopsy was performed to determine what made Albert different, if he was indeed different at all. Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, cut Einstein's brain into pieces and preserved it in formaldehyde for scientific study. …show more content…
According to Harvey, the overall size of Einstein's brain is unremarkable.
It actually weighed a third of a pound less than the three-pound average of adult males. In 1985, scientists at University of California, Berkeley reported that portions of Einstein's brain had higher than normal numbers of glial cells, which feed neurons. The Berkeley researchers suggested that the extra glial cells were needed to nourish Einstein's high-performance neurons. In addition,
Einstein's brain fell in the range of normal for all measurements, except for the portion known as the inferior parietal lobes, located in the middle of the brain. Einstein's parietal lobes were bigger and better connected than the norm. Subsequent experiments have shown the parietal lobes are involved in mathematics, as well as music and processing of visual images, strongly suggesting a biological link between the shape of Einstein's brain and his remarkable mathematical
skills.
To clone or not to clone?
A large portion of Einstein's brain remains preserved in formaldehyde today, so removing sufficient viable DNA for cloning would probably be possible. But, would cloning another Einstein, or several Einsteins, necessarily give rise to an army of great physicists? Not all believe so. Einstein's remarkable accomplishments may also have been nurtured by environmental and social influences as well. A cloned Einstein born in the 21st century to a different set of arbitrarily assigned "parents" would certainly have divergent views and emotional issues than the original. Would the clones discover disgust, and rebel against their vulgar origins, and use their great genius to punish society, instead of bettering it? Or would the clones simply have no interest in science at all? Certainly, a new Einstein would be of incalculable benefit to mankind, faced with seemingly insurmountable technical dilemmas as global warming, and would be of infinite assistance in all matters mathematical, including the elusive quest for nuclear fusion, but would they cooperate, or even display any interest at all?
As the science of genetics quietly advances, dissected pieces of Einstein's brain await patiently, a possible savior for mankind's self-inflicted ills, or a Pandora's Box, the likes never seen before in the annals human history.