You can follow along right here and watch H.M.'s brain be turned into super-thin slices and mounted onto glass plates for later study. Now, as much as I would love to watch all 50 hours of that process right with you, I will need to sleep at some point, so I'd think anyone who catches particularly nifty screengrabs from the stream and posts them in the comments would be super awesome. [The Brain Observatory via Slashdot]

True, here the fMRI is being used by the defense as a means to elude the death penalty, and only in the sentencing portion of the trial—not as a tool of conviction, as a dubious EEG scan was used to convict a woman of murder in India last year. Specifically, the fMRI scan is being submitted as evidence that the defendant Brian Dugan's brain is abnormal—psychopathic—and so he shouldn't be subject to the death penalty. The jury disagreed, but took 10 hours to reach the decision that the state should kill Dugan for his crime. Without the scan, Dugan's defense attorney says it would've take them an hour.

It's kind of hard to grasp, conceptually, looking inside somebody's brain, literally peering into their mind. It's something from fiction, something paranormal—mind readers and psychics—as a means of detection, a means of determining right and wrong, truth and lies. Brain scans to determine how much punishment your crime merits logically leads into brain scans that figure out whether or not you committed the crime, into scans that reveal every crime you have committed, a persistent and inescapable confessional. What secrets would your brain spill? [Science Mag via Wired]

Henry Markram, the Blue Brain guy, says in an email to IBM's CTO, that the project is not even close to an ants brain and that the kind of simulations pulled off by IBM are trivial. He also calls the whole thing "stupid", and "extremely harmful to the field." [IEEE via Popsci]

Here's how it works: people are subjected to a range of stimuli, ranging from a series of flashing lights to a driving simulator to, well, silence, while changes in brain activity are monitored by MRI. The results get passed through software that assigns specific tones to different regions of the brain, netting something like a song for each scan.

These impulses aren't inherently musical—they've been deliberative assigned tones that sound nice together, and even so sound rather chaotic—nor would you expect them to be, since this is just a novel way to present MRI. What's fascinating is how noticeably different the sounds of active and dormant brains, or troubled and untroubled brains actually are. And not to diminish the seriousness of schizophrenia in any way, but the scanned map and accompanying sounds for an affected brain, seen at about 40 seconds into the video, are nothing short of awesome. [New Scientist]

This means both developers at large studios as well as dudes in their basement can make programs and games that do things with the data generated by the headset. And you generate data just by thinking a certain way.

What kind of stuff can these developers do? Well, for larger companies they can make this an additional controller to supplement their normal games, such as reloading just by concentrating or lifting boxes and "setting crap on fire." Independent developers can make weird one-off games that can really stretch the limits of what the Neurosky Mindset can read from your brain. Or porn games. [Neurosky]

Based on electroencephalography technology (or EEG to us laymen), a properly functioning Epoc isn't out of the realm of possibility. But after a series of failed press appearances, starting just after the announcement and culminating in a glitchy gaming failure which I witnessed firsthand at the Intel Developer Forum, the product just doesn't look like it's ready.

BigDownload spoke to a PR rep for the company, who said that the product is being held back until it "work[s] as planned", which translates to a release "sometime in 2009". There's obviously plenty of enthusiasm for stuff like this, but little startups like this can only hold on for so long without bringing a product to market. The price, as far as we know, is still set at $299. [BigDownload—Thanks, John]

Though the system is made up of several parts right now, NeuroSky plans on integrating everything into a small chip in the near future. I hope the final version of this product includes a brain inebriation detector. Otherwise, I pray for all of us cellphone users already prone to drunk dialing. [Tech On]

For about $90, Toscano will ship this guy to you in three macabre pieces. When assembled, they'll cover a 31½"x19½"x8" stretch of earth. That is, until the day he and his buddies claw their way completely to the surface, eat our brains, and take over the planet. Then they'll be everywhere, doing their zombie gardening with a silent stoicism, and you'll be the garden gnome. [Design Toscano via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Hooking up through the internet, the two teams were able to share these monkey brain walking signals—for lack of a better term—in real time, streaming the neural impulses halfway across the world to a pair of robot legs that were programmed with corresponding movements.

While researchers have been doing similar studies since 2000, giving monkeys control of robot legs (as opposed to what seems to be some more simple arm motions) is a breakthrough in the inevitable monkeys-teaming-with-robots for human overthrow scenario or just the dominance of an advanced mechanical intelligence sure to thieve all man's bananas without mercy. [newscientist and image]

Scientists have invented a gel that mimics human tissue. By combining the gel with the microchip, chances that the body will reject the device are far less likely. The entire project is said to be five years from implementation.

Personally, I'd love to see these microchips developed for civilian use, especially for diabetics and those who need constant blood work. But when framed as a government, military initiative, the altruistic potential can be scared off by Big Brother. [intelligencedaily via inquirer]

Well, the device may one day be used to operate other electronic devices with your mind (like your cellphone or MP3 player) or it can be used to play "mind games" with other people. Now if they could design it so you don't look like a retarded ninja from the '80s while wearing it. – Louis Ramirez

Walkman-style Brain Scanner [Pink Tentacle via TechDigest]