Scientists Have Created A Telepathic Link Between Humans And Rats
In the first documented case of inter-species telepathy, humans were hooked up to a machine and could control the movement of a rat's tail using their brains alone.
That's absolutely incredible. The weirdest thing? The researchers say they can do it between two humans, too.
The human wears an electrode cap that is hooked up to a computer that senses brainwave patterns. The rat is anesthetized and hooked up to a machine that sends ultrasound waves into the part of their brain that controls movement.
The computer detects the specific brain signal from the human volunteer that is associated with the thought, "move the rat's tail." When the computer detects this, it sends a signal into the rat's brain, which moves the tail.
Every participant was able to make the rat's tail move, and it worked 94 percent of the time. It took about 1.6 seconds between the thought and the movement.
The researchers were led by Seung-Schik Yoo of Harvard Medical School in Boston. The study was published April 3 in the journal PLoS ONE. It's similar to an experiment published in February in which two rats were telepathically linked transcontinentally.