Researchers Manipulate Neurons in Worms’ Brains and Take Control of Their Behavior
by J.G. Vibes
Activist Post
September 25, 2012
A team of Harvard scientists have discovered how to manipulate neurons in the brains of worms in order to take control of their behavior. This literal mind control is achieved through the use of precisely targeted lasers. So far researchers have been able to take over an animal’s brain, instruct it to turn in any direction they choose, and even to implant false sensory information, fooling the animal into thinking food was nearby.
When news of this reaches the mainstream media there is no doubt that they will say that there is no intention in using this on more complex life forms, however the researchers themselves are already discussing just that.
Sharad Ramanathan, an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology recently told nature journal that “If we can understand simple nervous systems to the point of completely controlling them, then it may be a possibility that we can gain a comprehensive understanding of more complex systems. This gives us a framework to think about neural circuits, how to manipulate them, which circuit to manipulate and what activity patterns to produce in them.”
He also said that “Most of these approaches have discovered neurons necessary for specific behavior by destroying them. The question we were trying to answer was: Instead of breaking the system to understand it, can we essentially hijack the key neurons that are sufficient to control behavior and use these neurons to force the animal to do what we want? We want to understand the brain of this animal, which has only a few hundred neurons, completely and essentially turn it into a video game, where we can control all of its behaviors.”
It comes as no surprise that this study was funded by the Human Frontier Science Program, the NIH Pioneer Award and the National Science Foundation. The Human Frontier Science Program itself a massive bureaucracy which receives financial support from the governments or research councils of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, UK, USA, as well as from the European Union. The NIH Pioneer Award is a program set up by the US government that gives grants to “scientists of exceptional creativity, who propose pioneering – and possibly transforming approaches – to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.”
These efforts to control the mind of a living animal are openly funded by state agencies, and being announced as if it was just a typical benign scientific discovery. While human subjects are not being used in these studies as we saw with project MK-Ultra, it is obvious that this new program has the same intentions, to control the human mind remotely.
If you have any questions or disagreements feel free to email me at jgvibes@aotmr.com
J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance and host of a show called Voluntary Hippie Radio. He is also an artist with an established record label and event promotion company that hosts politically charged electronic dance music events. You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his website www.aotmr.com .
Cyborg Monkeys
by Osirian Dawn
Reality Sandwich
September 27, 2012
Mental augmentation for animals is no longer a science fiction fantasy plot, but a scientific reality. Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre, University of Kentucky, and University of Southern California were able to increase the intellectual proficiency of monkeys. George Dvorsky writes about these groundbreaking findings in his article, “Should we upgrade the intelligence of animals?”
The scientists took five rhesus monkeys and trained them in identifying certain images within a delayed match-to-sample game. After two years, the monkeys attained an average of a 75% proficiency rate. After having mapped out the areas of the brain that lit up when the monkeys correctly identified the images, they then administered cocaine (you just can’t make this stuff up) to hinder their decision-making.
To the scientists’ amazement, when they turned on the implanted neural devices within the monkeys’ brains, they found that they were able to reverse the effects of the cocaine. But what’s even more incredible is they discovered, under sober conditions, that the neural device allowed the monkeys to exceed the average proficiency rate, signifying an actual intelligence increase!
DRONE: Rise of the Autonomous Super Soldier [videos included]
by Nicholas West
Activist Post
September 3, 2012
image source: Android World
A dystopian science fiction plot has indeed entered our reality whereby machines have not only supplanted humans on the battlefield and in the workforce, but they can now work together and make decisions on their own.
Autonomous machine warfare is here. And similar to all military experimentation, the technology has a coincidental way of trickling down to be experienced by everyday citizens and consumers, such as augmented reality applications.The foundation for drone bombings abroad is the very same that is ready to escalate across the Western world. Fleets of weaponized surveillance drones with the ability to communicate amongst themselves and wage war independently is part of a project called MUSIC. It integrates unmanned and manned aircraft in combat, and has been displayed as a showcase of aircraft interoperability.
These aircraft also possess the ability to exchange and use the information as needed, whether it is to conduct surveillance or reconnaissance of a given area. This interoperability creates a Universal Ground Control Station, or network of drones and their payloads. (Source)
This is what is open to the public now. Imagine 10 years from now. A new webseries called DR0NE postulates some of what we can expect.
The director behind DR0NE is Robert Glickert, who worked as a production assistant on both Iron Man and Transformers, as well as writing and directing the 2009 horror short Road to Moloch and a distributed thriller called The Descendent, which was actually Glickert’s film school thesis project at Chapman University in 2006.
The quality and cost of production is evident. Part 1 seems to indicate a shrouded humanity within what appears to be a reluctant robot that has been compromised by an incident involving a civilian murder. Whether this is predictive programming employed to elicit empathy for the coming drone army, or truly a cautionary tale is up for debate.
However, humanoid robots such as DARPA’s PETMAN have already been designed to balance, walk, crawl, and even climb stairs, while also having the ability to simulate human physiology such as sweating, so we can only conclude that all of what we are not being shown is likely to come online by this film’s 10-year timeframe.
Other autonomous robots are in development as well, but naturally they are being promoted as “peacekeepers” to help in rescue missions, or as evacuation assistants needed for natural or man-made disasters. This is a familiar refrain, as the friendly face of technology is often paraded first, before the darker applications are implemented. (Source)
Regardless of how film portrays the rise of autonomous super soldiers, one no longer needs much of an imagination to see what is on the horizon for humanity in the very short term if mad scientists and technocrats have their way.Read other articles by Nicholas West HERE
You can support this information by voting on Reddit HERE
Michael Tsarion — Architects of Control [full documentary]
via YouTube — TormentedStatue (March 4, 2010)
and YouTube — schrekskuh (March 28, 2009)
Produced by Michael Tsarion and Blue Fire Film, Architects of Control: Program One, explores humankinds future and the posthuman world. Will the perfect human be a dumbed down, regimented inhabitant of a cyber purgatory created by unseen elites? Will the children of tomorrow be smiling depressives of a technocratic dystopia?
Please go here to buy the full DVD http://www.architectsofcontrol.com/
[part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16]
Subjects Include:
Jim Keith
Mass Control
Mind Control and its History
Radiotronic Weaponry
Psychic Dictatorship
Mass Ritual Killings
The Men in White
Operation Cointelpro
Operation Chaos
Teen Rage
School Shootings
Media Manipulation
Sleeper Assassins
Project Monarch and MK Ultra
Operation Paperclip
Sorcery and Magic
The Cult of Dionysus
Peoples Champions
Astro-Theology
The Anatomy of Thought
Tragedy: Catalyst of Change
Global Awakening
The Myth of Progress
The Global Village
The Inauthentic Life
Drugged, Medicated, and Under Control
The Deconstruction Cycle
The Rise and Fall of Civilizations
The Death of Emotion
The Posthuman World Initiated
2012: The Age of Revealing
Civilization: Rise and Fall
Psychic Hygiene
The Sane and the Unsane
Bonus Sections:
Michaels Commentary
Henriks Commentary
FAIR USE NOTICE: We are making this material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights,economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes
Rosario Dawson Talks to WeAreChange [video]
We Are Change
September 24, 2012
Rosario Dawson talks to Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange
Follow Luke on twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/lukewearechange
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Are You a Slave to Social Networking?
by Cherie Roe Dirksen
Conscious Life News
September 16, 2012
This is not going to be an article bashing social networking or shouting from the rooftops that it’s from the devil. No, I find it an extremely helpful, if not detrimental, modern-day tool. I utilize it socially — to stay in touch with friends and family — and I use it for my business.
Social networking is a great device for spreading information and touching base. However, it can also be abused.
All too often I see people with their noses stuck to their iPods, even when they are publicly with someone else. Does anyone else find this extremely rude? What is it that keeps the populace stuck to other people’s dramas or, in some case, tedious actions? Are we craving attention? Is it the need to feel connected? Is it that ugly ego rearing its head and wanting to be seen or to compare?
Let’s Get Real
I think we will all have different reasons for using social networking but if you are finding it hard to keep those nimble thumbs off your key-pad, then let’s dive into a bit of introspection — answer these questions honestly:
- Control – do you have command over how much time you spend on social networks such as facebook or twitter, or does it have an irrepressible hold on you?
- Breaks — can you go without it for a long period of time and not be bothered? Have you ever tested yourself on this?
- Loss — do you feel disconnected if you don’t ‘plug in’? Are you just itching to be updated again? Are you feeling like you are missing out on something?
- Time – how many moments do you waste scouring news feeds only to find that 2 hours have passed and you have not really found anything of true value?
- Question — how are you using it? Is it benefitting you in some way? Or is it serving as a distraction? Or both?
- Limits — can you set yourself boundaries and time limits?
- Trimming —Hone down who and what you give your energy to. Are you wasting a lot of time on engaging in a drama that really doesn’t involve you? Are you helping or fueling the situation? Or are you just filling empty space?
- Clarity — are you using facebook for friends and people you actually know? Or do you befriend any Tom, Dick and Harry that requests your precious time? Get clear about which social networks are for what. In other words, use facebook or twitter to stay in touch with interesting people, friends and family and sites like LinkedIn and facebook business pages for your associates, promotions and dealings. Be clear about the reason you are using these sites and don’t just give your time away willy-nilly.
- Allocations — assign specific times to go on for personal and business use and be liable for those periods — keep to that schedule.
Rudeness Concealed as ‘The Norm’
At all costs avoid whipping out your iPad in real conversation with bona fide friends and colleagues – nobody appreciates this and you may end up losing a tangible friend or business deal for one moment of digital gratification.
The friends who are willing to meet up with you in the flesh are the ones that will be there for you when you need them. Give them your undivided attention and respect.
If someone has taken time out to be with you, they should take precedence over any electronic device that is beeping for your attention — learn to turn it off if it’s a distraction.
Take the Test
If you find that social networking is controlling you and you can’t let go, try this out:
- Alert your connections that you will be taking one weeks (or however long you feel you need) ‘vacation’ from the net.
- Hold yourself accountable for it, no matter what juicy adventures you want to share – be present with that urge to splurge and be at peace with telling no-one.
- Observe how remaining silent makes you feel – do you feel a certain tranquility or are you chomping at the bit? Really question yourself — do you truly need to share that photo of your dinner last night? Do your friends need to know how long you were at the gym this morning? Possibly not.
- If you are experiencing more calm and ease without social networking, then this exercise has worked. You will be more aware of how to limit your time dedicated to it in the future. Work out a viable timetable and stick to it.
- If you are edgy and feel anxious, then this exercise has also worked and you need to go into why you are feeling this way. Social networking has a hold over you and there is something there that needs addressing. Dig deep and follow the thread of answers to this question: Why do I feel the need to be distracted? You will be taken to the core of your inability to ‘let go’ of being in the loop about every little detail, or keeping people in the loop about every endeavor you undertake.
You Are the Center of Your Own World
When you take a break from your social networking sites, I can bet that you most likely will not be missed — however, this will not be from the lack of love your friends and associates have for you.
The reason is, in all actuality, you are not going to be the center of their worlds and they will most likely have many other diversions to keep them busy. Don’t take offense at this — it is helpfully indicative that everyone has a ‘life’. You are at the center of your revolving world and they are conducting their version of reality too — learn to honor this and be grateful when your worlds collide for the greater good.
This can give you a clearer perspective of how you identify what is important and hone down what you feel you need to distribute that will benefit others. It will aid you to ascertain what needs to be shared and what can remain private.
Call to Action
I want you to work out approximately how much time a week you spend on social networking and then compare it to your new timetable. Let us know how much time you have saved!
Use social networking responsibly and you will have the best of both worlds.
PN 