New technology to allow a British professor to control the movements of his wife through thought alone? An example of 'mind control' techniques being public knowledge?

Professor To Try To 'Control'
Wife Via Chip Implant
By Roger Dobson
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk
(I found it at - http://www.sightings.com/general10/professortotry.htm)

Surgeons are preparing to create the first husband and wife cyborgs: they intend to implant computer chips in a British professor and his wife to see if they can communicate sensation and movement by thought alone.

The professor hopes it will show how two brains can interact; doctors at Stoke Mandeville hospital, who will perform the surgery, hope it will lead to new treatments for paralysis victims.

In the experiment Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University, and his wife, Irena, will have silicon chips about 2in long implanted in their arms just above the elbow. Each chip will also have a power source, a tuner and a radio transceiver. They will be surgically connected to nerve fibres in the couple's arms.

The signals from Warwick will be converted to radio waves and transmitted to a computer which will re- transmit them to the chip in Irena. Warwick believes that when he moves his own fingers, his brain will also be able to move Irena's.

They may even be able to communicate anger and excitement, because emotions also stimulate nerve activity. "It is like putting a plug into the nervous system," said Warwick.

"If I move my left index finger by sending signals to move the muscles, those signals will also be transmitted to Irena's nervous system. We know the signal is transmissable. The question is whether it will be recognised in the same way by Irena."

The signal could reach Irena's brain as well as her fingers. Not surprisingly she is wary, "I have mixed feelings because I'm worried about the operation, being under an anaesthetic," she said. "On the other hand, it is exciting." Apart from the novelty and excitement, she does not want her husband to be "linked up to another woman".

Ali Jamous, the surgeon who will lead the operation on the couple, says the technology may one day help people who are paralysed by spinal cord damage. "The nerves in the leg below the lesion are still working but cannot make contact with the brain," he said. "If we could transmit that signal from one side of the lesion to the other, you could bypass the break."

With Warwick he aims to connect both motor and sensory nerves to the chip in the hope that signals from one or both will prove transmissable. "It should work because the basic science is good," he said.

Ian Pearson, who studies emerging technologies for British Telecom, says several centres are researching cyborgs: "The aim is to control computers and other equipment through direct links to the brain. It is control by thought and I know the military are very interested."

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America, cyborg research is concentrated mainly on wearable computers. These can be set in clothing fabric like a printed circuit, or worn as a pair of spectacles that can project images onto the eye.

However, Warwick, who hopes to undergo the operation in September, believes he is in the vanguard: "I think we have a window of a few months and we will be the first." Provided he does not fall out with his wife.