Knock it off with them negative waves Moriarty.

[Spoo]

Early experiments using 'non-invasive' brain stimulation have been performed on several dozen volunteers at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The results show the technique improves both alertness and acuity, researchers say.....still, he cautioned, "it is not very precise yet."

"Yeah, this seems legit," Spoo said in a bitterly sarcastic tone.

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/02/air-force-stimulates-brain-waves-drone-operators

Air Force stimulates brain waves of drone operators

WASHINGTON

For some modern soldiers, caffeine is just not enough to stay vigilant, especially for the growing ranks of digital warriors who must spend hours monitoring spy drone footage and other streams of surveillance data. So the Pentagon is exploring a novel way to extend troops' attention spans and sharpen their reaction times: stimulate the brain with low levels of electricity. It sounds like science fiction, but commanders in search of more effective tools than the ubiquitous cups of coffee and energy drinks are testing medical treatments designed to treat such brain disorders as depression to determine whether they can also improve the attentiveness of sleep-deprived but otherwise healthy troops.

Early experiments using "non-invasive" brain stimulation have been performed on several dozen volunteers at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The results show the technique improves both alertness and acuity, researchers say. ''We found that people who receive the stimulation are performing consistently," R. Andy McKinley, a biomedical engineer who oversees the research, said in an interview. Project officials want to study the effects further -- especially to determine whether it is safe to stimulate the brain regularly -- but said there have been few side effects, such as some skin irritation from the electrodes, as well as mild but brief headaches. They expressed confidence that the work could ultimately result in a pair of easy-to-apply electrodes becoming standard issue for some military personnel. But the hardware is unlikely to be standard issue for civilians any time soon. For now, researchers don't envision non-military application for the high-tech caffeine high.

The research grew out of a recognition that while computers have automated many military functions, humans are needed in ever-larger numbers to monitor massive amounts of information in order to make crucial battlefield decisions. ''It used to be the people who would win the arm wrestling match would win the war," said Alan Shaffer, the acting assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering. "In the future it is going to be who can process information most quickly and react to that. If you can't make sense of all the information coming in around you and get to a decision it has little value."

For decades what is known more broadly as electroconvulsive therapy carried a stigma -- due in large part to early treatments that administered large doses of electricity to psychiatric patients without anesthesia, often causing memory loss, fractured bones, and other serious side effects. But such therapy now relies on carefully controlled doses of electrical current, which are passed into certain regions of the brain to cause, in effect, a minor seizure, or more rapid nerve impulses. Some of the techniques have been embraced by the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, and the US Surgeon General as a valuable tool to treat various psychiatric disorders, especially major depression.

But research into its effects on healthy subjects remains limited. ''There is some evidence that it does seem to work," said Dr. William "Scott" Killgore, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School who specializes in the mental health treatments. "There have been a few studies that if you use it in the right place it can help mathematical calculations when people are sleep-deprived." Still, he cautioned, "it is not very precise yet."

For example, stimulating certain parts of the brain reduces activity in others. ''The hard part is to know what to turn on and what to turn off," said Killgore, who is involved in a separate Pentagon study to help determine which parts of the brain are most effective to stimulate. "It gets somewhat complicated. It is a really exciting idea but it is slow going." The new Pentagon effort is described as one of the most in-depth studies of electric stimulation on healthy individuals.

Specialists call the two different techniques being studied transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation. The first has been more widely used in the medical community and relies on a magnetic field to pass the electrical current into the brain. The second technique passes electrical current directly into the brain. For example, in one of the tests, one milliampere is applied for 10 minutes; by comparison, the amount of electrical current needed to power a car's instrument panel is on average about 150 milliamperes.

The Pentagon research is focused on two primary goals: increasing alertness and improving overall cognitive performance. Monitoring intense streams of data can quickly become so repetitive -- especially when there is no action -- that attentiveness and recognition can deteriorate in as little as 20 minutes. And troops responsible for analyzing computer images for intelligence information -- unlike some pilots or other front-line personnel -- are not eligible for prescribed drugs that might help. ''Fatigue is one of the major factors our active duty military endure every day," said Justin Nelson, one of the project's researchers. After undergoing the brain stimulation, however, the test subjects proved alert at the end of the test periods -- some up to several hours -- "just like they were at minute one," said McKinley.

According to Lindsey McIntire, another one of the researchers, the brain stimulation demonstrated significantly better results than caffeine "and without the side effects," such as jitters, elevated heart rates, and the propensity for a person to "crash" when the caffeine wears off. In one scenario, the test subjects -- some who received caffeine, some brain stimulation, and the rest nothing -- were kept awake for a full 30 hours to see who would measure best in wakefulness and vigor. ''I wasn't sure what to expect," said Staff Sergeant William Raybon, one of the participants. "When I was initially hooked up to the electrodes there was a small tingling sensation. But he said that despite being so sleep-deprived, he felt "refreshed" after undergoing the treatment.

Subjects such as Raybon who received the brain stimulation "performed about twice as well as people who got nothing," said McKinley. As for those who were given coffee? ''Caffeine had tanked at this point," said McIntire.

Another aspect of the military research is whether the treatments can make troops better thinkers. In one such test, subjects were required to follow a series of procedures to identify on screen an aircraft entering friendly airspace.

The study, which also relied on control groups that drank coffee or nothing at all, found that those who did not receive one of several types of brain stimulation "performed significantly worse than any of the stimulation groups," according to the findings.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has conducted five separate studies, each costing about $200,000, shared by the Air Force, Army, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. ''We are beyond the proof-of-concept phase," McKinley said. "We are working on something that would be easy to apply that you could potentially field."

But some specialists such as Killgore aren't so sure that the science is quite there yet to use on healthy subjects regularly, especially direct currents of electricity, which he said relies on "much newer technology than the other ones." McKinley, too, acknowledged that there are still many questions to be answered, especially concerning any long-term effects. ''As far as using it every day, there is almost no data on that," he said. The Ohio laboratory is "ramping up a study to do that very thing."

Edited February 20, 2014 by Spoo

[ClearedHot]

What could possibly go wrong...seriously you have to trust the government...when has the government ever done medical research or testing on the troops/civilians?

1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.

1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.

1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occured within poverty-striken black populations.

1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.

1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.

1943 In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.

1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.

1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.

1945 "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.

1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.

1947 Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.

1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.

1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.

1950 I n an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.

1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.

1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.

1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.

1953 CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.

1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.

1955 Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.

1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.

1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army's Chemical Warfare Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.

1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.

1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.

1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.

1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.

1966 U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.

1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.

1968 CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.

1969 Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.

1970 Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses.

1970 United States intensifies its development of "ethnic weapons" (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.

1975 The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus).

1977 Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

1978 Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.

1981 First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine

1985 According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship.

1986 According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.

1986 A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.

1987 Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.

1990 More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.

1994 With a technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.

1994 Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War .

1995 U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.

1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.

1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.

1997 Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.

Edited February 20, 2014 by ClearedHot

[Spoo]

Original post editted to better reflect sarcasm.

[ClearedHot]

Original post editted to better reflect sarcasm.

Reply editted to reflect full understanding of Spoo Sarcasm and my failed imbedded humor response.

[sputnik]

Where the hell did you find that list?

[Day Man]

I was expecting to see a comment about the VSP/RIF shitshow at the end of CH's list.

[sky_king]

hmm, after seeing that list, I can't wait for my next anthrax vaccine.

[Spur38]

Why go through all the hassle? Just bring back Eugenics!

[Bob]

I for one embrace this idea. I have every expectation it will turn out as well or better than taking P-tabs during desert storm.

What could happen?

[MKopack]

I for one embrace this idea. I have every expectation it will turn out as well or better than taking P-tabs during desert storm.

What could happen?

I agree - what could ever go wrong?

"So Doc, what was that shot?" Still have mine.

[pawnman]

Here's what I thought of when I saw it...but then, I was a kid in the 90s when the show was still on.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3cf_1376269051