Science proves people's brains equivalent to Jell-O

Reposting an amusing bit from the adventures of modern psychiatry:

As seen online at the Jello Musuem and elsewhere:

March 17, 1993, technicians at St. Jerome hospital in Batavia [NY] test a bowl of lime Jell-O with an EEG machine and confirm the earlier testing by Canadian Doctor Adrian Upton in 1969 that a dome of wiggly Jell-O has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women. In 1969, Dr. Upton connected an electroencephalograph (EEG) to a dome of lime Jell-O, only to find the readings to be almost identical to those of healthy human beings.

This is not quite correct. To be picky, the signals observed are identical to brain waves. There is obviously no brain in a bowl of jello.

Also as originally reported in Mother Earth News back in 1976

THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM FOR MODERN MEDICINE . . . OR IS THERE?

Dr. Adrian Upton, professor of neurology at MacMasters University in Hamilton, Ontario, recently rigged a brain wave machine, artificial respirators, and intravenous feeding equipment to a bowl of lime jello about the size of a human brain, and—gasp!—recorded readings typical of those emitted by a living person. In fact, the good doctor noted, the results of the electronic analysis would not have qualified the dessert as sufficiently "dead" to have the life-sustaining plugs pulled under existing legal guidelines!

Apparently the Smithsonian once held a symposium on Jell-O where 1993 results were confirmed.

(Note - Dr. Upton is NOT a fictitious Doctor. He has had a long career at McMasters University)

What an electroencephalograph machine (or EEG) does is measure electrical activity in the brain. This is probably useful for something, though I’m not sure what.

Of course, the experiment proved that EEGs are quite susceptible to environmental interference. But it seems amusing that brain scientists are using this to try to detect thoughts. How much phenomena is attributed to the mere monitoring of environmental noise?

And confirming anything from the pre-internet era is a bit difficult.

Further Details:

March 17, 1993, technicians at St. Jerome hospital in Batavia test a bowl of lime Jell-O with an EEG machine and confirm earlier testing by Dr. Adrian Upton that showed that a bowl of Jell-O has brain waves identical to those of adult men and women.