Science Saturday: A Layman's Weekly Guide to the going-on's in the World of Science

Breakthrough of the Week
A group of Harvard Scientists have created a brain-to-brain interface, allowing humans to control other animals with thoughts alone.

My mind just blew itself (did you catch that reference?)

Why did they do it?
The purpose of this experiment is to help understand neural processes that will someday lead to FUCKING HUMAN TELEPATHY. You know how on our cell phones we call people, text, share photos, check Fantasy Sports, not check the Reds-Cardinals game because fuck them thats why? Well imagine doing that someday by just thinking it...... woah. I know what you're all thinking...

How did they do it?
First, understand that we know very little about how the brain works, even more little about how the brain processes thoughts. Basically the scientists took a test subject and wired him up to a crap load of computers, including those which measure region-specific brain activity. They then take these electric readings and impose them on the brain of a mouse. When the human test subject uses the region of the brain that controls fine motor movements the same region is activated in the mouse brain, moving the mouse's tail

How will this effect me?
All kinds of cool shit comes to mind, but as always, the benefits will mainly be reaped  by our grand children. How cool will it be to telepathically tell your dog to grab you a beer? Anyway this is all pretty primitive research. The next step is to try and control more complex brain processes such as hunger and sexual arousal (to be continued...)

So, this means Game of Thrones is real, right?
The world of Westeros just became plausible, folks. Just as Bran Stark the Warg can command the minds of animals (and Hodor, who essentially is one), we may some day be able to thwart other armies from North of the Wall and save our bastard-half-brother-with-a-different-last-name (Chris Snow) with our Direwolves...

Shameless Science plug of the Week
Check out the only reason I'm still on Facebook. Basically the inspiration for this blog segment.