Nation IN BRIEF : CONNECTICUT : Smithsonian Shreds Nude Yale Photos

The Smithsonian Institution shredded nude photographs and negatives decades ago of Yale University students who were unaware that the pictures, taken at physical education classes, were used to advance a since-discredited science. A researcher named W.H. Sheldon took photographs as part of his research to establish a relationship between body shape and intelligence. “We are delighted that the privacy of the individuals in those photographs will be forever protected,” said Yale spokesman Gary Fryer in New Haven, Conn. The photos, taken beginning in the early 1900s, were used only for research and never exhibited.