Costume Ideas for the Mad Scientist

If you're still scrambling for a Halloween costume, I suggest dressing as a mad scientist with a real live brain as a prop - which you can make yourself. Scientists at some other Florida school have developed a functioning brain using electrodes (electricity conductors) and rat neurons (brain parts), which could help figure out what causes neurological disorders, such as epilepsy, and how brain function evolved over time. Granted, the brain is quite small for an accessory, and it probably can't go outside for trick-or-treating, but it is impressive nonetheless.

And what do you do with the brain once Halloween is over? Train it to fly a plane, of course; I'm being completely serious. The scientists hooked up the mini-brain to a flight simulator and it slowly became better at flying the virtual aircraft. These brain-makers hope this technology could one day be used to fly unmanned aircrafts, such as fighter planes.

Still, I'm not sure how much I'd trust a "living computational device" to control a major aircraft, since it doesn't have any eyes. Luckily, this reality is still a far way off, according to a biomedical engineer at the Georgia Tech. The brain is far from having the capacity of a human brain, as it's made up of significantly less neurons. But since the brain is capable of learning, it can help create the next generation of computers, which will hopefully be able to do more than simply recall pre-programmed information.

If you don't have the time or energy to grow a brain, which is the major component of the costume, you can dress as a Jesus-doctor - one who can perform miracles by bringing damaged limbs and organs back to life. Earlier this month, scientists over in the United Kingdom came up with a plan to develop a "bionic" nerve, which will be rolled into a tube-like structure and placed between the two ends of a severed nerve. The nerve will then re-grow over the bionic structure, and supposedly, patients will regain complete use of the limb or organ that was damaged.

Granted, this costume would not be as impressive as the one with the brain, but you should be able to fake it pretty well for one night. Then again, I am not sure if nerds still get beat up in the school yard, so dressing like one for Halloween may be hazardous to your health. You could always take the easy way out and dress as Doctor Frankenstein, since there are plenty of costumes of his monster (also referred to as Frankenstein) floating around in retail stores. How close are we to building a real creature out of left-over parts like Frankenstein did in Mary Shelley's book? Not very, but are getting closer to fixing the parts we already have.