Scientists now surfing brain waves

Heard about scientists decoding subjective preference from single-trial near-infrared spectroscopy signals?

Yep, they’re reading minds.

According to a story in The Canadian Press, scientists have developed a “prototype device that allows a kind of mind-reading, using near-infrared light to decipher the brain’s response when a person is offered a choice of two objects.”

A fiber-optic fitted headband emits light into the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. In a study published in the Journal of Neural Engineering, scientists were able to predict test subjects’ preference for one of two drink choices 80 percent of the time.

In addition to being a great tool for waitresses, the device could someday help people with physical disabilities live better lives.

Longtime readers of this column know I am a strong proponent of scientific advancement, so much so that I believe the California octuplets should now be cloned. But I fear this mind-reading hat, in the wrong hands, could eventually result in the kind of telekinetic head explosions featured in the 1981 David Cronenberg film “Scanners.”

... What’s that smell? Is that burning hair?

... Hi, folks, scientists here. We’ve interrupted this column by tapping into Hollifield’s brain. It was easy, really. We replaced the headband of what he refers to as his “special writin’ hat,” a multi-colored gift shop sombrero, with near-infrared spectroscopy for a brain-computer interface. Frankly, our work is too important and holds too much potential to let a smart-aleck hillbilly who inexplicably lucked into a newspaper job ramble on for 400 more words linking it to heads exploding in a 29-year-old science-fiction movie.

Scientifically speaking, the guy has a screw loose. We read his so-called humor piece about the $35,000 commode in the bank executive’s office. He confused a toilet with a chest of drawers. And that wasn’t the first time.

We’ve got a few minutes to kill until the column is over and Hollifield has fulfilled his contractual obligations to fill this space no matter how nonsensical the topic, so let’s put the high beams on the near-infrared light and poke around in his noggin — in the name of science, of course.

Pretty empty in here. Echo. Echo. Echo.

We’ll follow this neural pathway for a while and — oh, yeah, there’s some structural damage. It appears to date back to the 1980s, a result of falling into an open pit at a construction site and striking his head on a concrete block during a late-night cultural exchange with migrant apple pickers. That explains a lot.

Now we’re continuing through the frontal lobe and taking a look at the section that allows most people to do mathematical calculations, but here it appears to have all been replaced by an encyclopedic knowledge of Burt Reynolds’ movies. Amazing. You can actually see where the formula for calculating the area of a triangle was pushed aside by large chunks of Sheriff Buford T. Justice dialogue from “Smokey and the Bandit.”

We’ll step around that scorched grey matter and — whoa! Look at that. It’s like the brain’s version of a cable TV channel devoted 24-7 to monkeys. There’s a monkey in a dress playing pingpong. We’ve got to admit, as scientists, that’s pretty darn amusing.

We’ll conclude our tour by pointing out this section, which stores Hollifield’s fear of having his head exploded by telekinesis. Could we do it? Sure we could. We’re scientists. But we won’t, because we use our knowledge for good, not ’80s-era sci-fi special effects.

We’ve successfully filled Hollifield’s contractually obligated space and prevented him from distorting the nature of our important research, so we’ll turn the column and his brain back over to him ...

... and that’s why Burt Reynolds would never use telekinesis to explode a monkey’s head.

Seriously, what is that smell?

Scott Hollifield is editor/general manager of The McDowell News in Marion, N.C. Contact him at P.O. Box 610, Marion, NC 28752 or e-mail .