Eight jars of preserved human brains, sitting in a wood-and-glass cabinet on the second floor of Cornell's Uris Hall. All that's left of the once-650-strong Wilder Brain Collection assembled between 1889 and 1935. Among the remaining specimens are the brain of Helen Hamilton Gardener, an early feminist who challenged the era's claim that male brains were larger, and that of Edward Howard Rulloff, a nineteenth-century murderer and amateur philologist.
The cabinet is unattended and free to view during building hours. It is a small but specifically Ithaca moment — turn up, peer at the jars, read the laminated cards, and leave wondering what your own brain might say about you.