Neuroscience

Top 10 Unbelievable Ways The CIA Experimented With Psychic Powers

From 1978 to 1995, the Central Intelligence Agency ran a secret program called Stargate. Their goal was to create an army of what they called “psychic warriors”—men with superhuman abilities who could use their powers to look inside enemy bases, manipulate the physical world, and peer into the future.
This wasn’t just a few renegade kooks. The government funneled millions of dollars into the psychic warrior program. They used rigorous scientific methods to test whether these powers were real, and they were convinced enough that they put their psychics to work in hundreds of major field operations.
All of that might sound completely insane—but most of the Stargate reports call it a complete success. The CIA spent nearly 20 years working with psychics, and the results are enough to give even the staunchest of skeptics pause.

Neuroscience

MindMaze's Neural VR Interface Reads Your Mind to Reflect Your Facial Expression

If Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reading his crystal ball correctly, then the next big thing will be social virtual reality. In the very near future, you’ll put on a virtual reality headset and meet up with friends for virtual hangouts, live concerts, and interactive games.

But as anyone who survived the early Second Life scene can attest, virtual avatars can be pretty socially inept. After all, there’s only so much you can say with a permasmile frozen on your face.

This week, a neurotechnology company based in Switzerland called MindMaze unveiled a product that can synchronize a variety of human facial expressions on virtual avatars. Called MASK, the technology reads your brain signals to predict a smile or a wink milliseconds before you even move. The result is a faster-than-real-time reflection of your changing facial expressions that has the potential to add new emotional depth to social and gaming interactions in VR and bring the technology’s use further into the mainstream.

Neuroscience

Electronic Weapons, Radio Frequency Radiation, Remote Manipulation of the Human Nervous System

In mid March 2016 the Polish defense minister Antoni Macierewicz visited the University of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk to participate in the discussion on problems of contemporary politics, armed conflicts and terrorism. One of the listeners asked him, whether Poland has got a strategy, how to solve illegal experiments with electromagnetic weapons on unwitting Polish citizens. Antoni Macieriwicz replied that his ministry is conducting an analysis on this subject and that he is going to establish a commission, which will investigate the complaints of Polish citizens.

In this way the Polish minister of defense admitted that there exist electromagnetic weapons, capable to interfere with the functioning of human organism and that it may be used on Polish citizens.

The fact that the major European media did not report on this event, rose our suspicion that the European Union Member States are bound to keep those weapons secret and even bound not to legislate against their use. This our suspicion was confirmed by the Polish weekly NIE, when its journalists were asking the Polish Defense Ministry why it did not fulfill its promise and did not establish a commission which was supposed to investigate complaints of Polish citizens that they are exposed to electromagnetic attacks and the defense ministry replied that this topic is subjected to national security information connected with  the defense of the nation.

Neuroscience

Super SEALs: Elite Units Pursue Brain-Stimulating Technologies

At a conference near Washington, D.C., in February, the commander of all Navy special operations units made an unusual request to industry: Develop and demonstrate technologies that offer "cognitive enhancement" capabilities to boost his elite forces' mental and physical performance.

"We plan on using that in mission enhancement," Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski said. "The performance piece is really critical to the life of our operators."

Szymanski expanded on his remarks in a brief interview later, saying he has his eye on a number of technologies, including pharmaceutical aids. But the results of one breakthrough involving the direct application of electrical stimulation to the brain have particularly caught his eye.

Neuroscience

Real-life Jason Bourne: SEALs test ‘cognitive enhancement’

Volunteers within the ranks of U.S. Navy SEALs and other elite units are experimenting with new technologies, which may enhance their already impressive skill sets.

Officials with Naval Special Warfare Command have confirmed that personnel are testing transcranial electrical stimulation and other methods eyed last July by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter. The efforts are part of an initiative called the Defense Innovation Unit (Experimental), or DIUx.

“Earlier this year, Naval Special Warfare units, working with DIUx, began a specific cognitive enhancement project with a small group of volunteers to test and evaluate achieving higher performance through the use of neuro-stimulation technology,” said Capt. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the command, in a statement to Military.com Sunday about the project. “Early results show promising signs,” he said. “Based on this, we are encouraged to continue and are moving forward with our studies.”

Neuroscience

Pentagon explores ‘sixth sense’ seemingly displayed in war zones

The U.S. military wants to know why some troops deployed to war zones seem to have a “sixth sense” or “Spidey sense” that alerts them to IEDs, snipers and other existential threats.

A four-year study worth $3.85 million began in 2014 to better understand “sensemaking,” or the ability of personnel to make “connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively.”

Annie Jacobsen, author of “Phenomena,” recently interviewed officials involved in the Office of Naval Research project.