In the twilight days of hypnochan, there was a thread discussing "your perfect setup," about what sort of real-life equipment forumgoers would like to have. It started out with things like sensory deprivation chambers, but conversation turned to more recent events. One topic was the effect of magnetic fields on brainwaves. The thread was fascinating in its entirety.

There is tons of research being done every day on the brain and its processes, and fiction is nothing but fact with a few broken assumptions. With some adjustment, an article or talk could become fantastic material for a manip or fic (or even just a fantasy!), made all the more compelling by its link to the actual. Collecting said items is the goal of this thread, to provide a well of inspiration for those who need it and knowledge for the curious.

In the spirit of the title, posts will require some formatting. Discussion belongs at the top of a post, and a separator must be placed between it and any included submissions. Submissions are somewhat more rigid in definition:

(Date: Title - [Tags] - Link - Highlights)

Date: The date the item was added to the internet. Year/Month/Day.
Title: The title of the item.
Tags: The manner of communication of ideas. Has its own section, below.
Link: The link to the item.
Highlights: The main points (according to the topic and the poster's opinion) of the item.

--Tags--
ABS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_(summary) The hardest science. For simplicity's sake, this will also be used to refer to the full text of such articles, in order to differentiate from more casually presented material.
AUD - The item is audio-only; Radio clips and podcasts.
IMG - The item consists of one or more still images.
TXT - The item is in a written format.
VID - The item is a video.
If you come across an interesting item that communicates ideas in a manner that cannot be described using these tags, suggest a tag and I'll add it to the list.

To help make this post self-demonstrating, this is the end of the discussion portion and the separator and submissions follow.

***

(2013/5/21: The Chemistry Between Us: Larry Young at TEDxEmory - [VID] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoweLVvR7-8 - Non-pairbonding voles are permanently modified to pair bond via a viral vector, Neurotransmitter nasal spray makes human males wary of women other than their partners for a time)
(2013/6/5: Helicopter Takes to the Skies With the Power of Human Thought - [IMG, TXT, VID] - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130605090259.htm - Non-invasive brain-to-computer control)
(2013/6/25: The Man With A 'Battery Operated Brain' - [TXT, VID] - http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/06/25/195521917 - Electrodes implanted in the brain reduce or eliminate the physical tics Parkinson's causes by regulating electrical signals)

Fascinating idea but the tags thing seems weird, unnecessary and arbitrary, plus it makes it more prone to TL;DR. I'd say if anyone has any link just put it up.

For example - brain implants (older tech than one would like to admit):
http://io9.com/5871598/the-scien...with-fm-radio-frequencies
(Has links to a PDF and such there)

Huh. I added the tags thing to help prevent TL;DR, so people could know exactly what to expect before clicking on a link. Existing interest improves attention span, was the theory. If that's somehow putting people off it could be (and should be) dropped.
Excellent link, by the way.

Edit: I just found this, and it would be a crime not to post it.
(1974/11/??: Stimulation of Breast Growth by Hypnosis - [TXT, ABS] - http://www.scribd.com/doc/275474...Breast-Growth-by-Hypnosis - Age regression, kinesthetic hallucinations and time progression produced via hypnosis, in order, can supposedly cause elements of puberty to recur)

GorgonEyed,
tl;dr (just kidding)

Let's keep the citation stuff for college term papers, thanks. I like the topic of this thread though.

Stem_Cell,
Dr. Delgado's work is interesting, I don't think he ever really stopped working on MC for the government. Years later he claimed they no longer needed the electrodes or invasive surgery to achieve the same results. Dr. Allan Frey's work in this area using pulsed RF and microwaves is also intriguing.

I have been fascinated with hard scifi MC concepts since Michael Crichton's novel The Terminal Man. Niven's Ringworld series also explored this concept. They imagined wireheading to replace recreational drugs. Today the only real wireheads are parkinsons's patients or those with previously untreatable depression using DBS pacemakers to alleviate their symptoms.

Non-invasive methods are coming, however. Teams in the U.S., France and Israel are now working towards this goal using phased array techniques. I imagine that cheap stereotactic headsets could be produced that utilize these same methods. I am in the process of writing a short story that explores the impact of this technology on society in the near future. I'll post some related links later when I get a chance.

Which scares the fuck outta me. Secret projects are only de-classified decades after the fact, and who knows what kinds of experiments these guys do with the mountains of money that US's army has at its disposal.


That sounds a lot like Dollhouse :) Which can only be a good thing.