Congrats fellow nerds, mankind just got one step closer to finally being able to connect our brains to the Internet.
Researchers at the University of Washington have done just that, enabling one dude to wiggle the finger of the other dude using mind control and the Internet, according to NBC News.
Computer scientist Rajesh Rao acted as “fingermaster” (NBC News’s questionable term, not ours) to psychology professor Andrea Stocco. Mr. Rao and Mr. Stocco sat at opposite ends of the University of Washington campus, while Mr. Rao’s brain signals were transmitted to Mr. Stocco’s finger over the Internet.
Closing the full circle of geekiness, Mr. Stocco’s finger was hovering over a space bar so that he could hit it to score in a video game.
“It was akin to the sensation when your eye twitches,” Mr. Stocco is quoted as saying. “You know that your eye is twitching but you don’t know when it’s coming.”
NBC News lists a few other instances of laboratory mind control reminiscent of Pinky and the Brain, such as an experiment in which a human wiggled a sleeping rat’s tail. Maybe soon, scientists will figure out a way to mind-control all the rats out of the subway. That would be useful.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNRDc714W5I&w=420&h=315]
