Scientists Create A Mind Reader

I love those "Weird Science" and other strange news stories you see on the Internet.

Here's a good one I found today...

In one of the "weirdest" science news stories of 2008, it was reported that Japanese researchers have developed a system for figuring out what you're thinking of... what your brain is visualizing. And this is no "pick a card, any card" trick either.

In one experiment, they flashed letters on a screen, recorded the brain patterns of people who were staring at the screen, and then fed the data into a computer. The software deciphered the rough shapes of the letters: N-E-U-R-O-N, which was exactly the word shown on the screen. By the way, Neuron is the name of the journal in which the research was published.

The researchers claimed the technology could be used as communication for people who cannot speak, or help visualize hallucinations to aid doctors and mental health agents as an aid for medical treatment. Or perhaps the medical guys and gals could just use the visualizations for their own amusement. (Come on - some doctors are easily amused!)

Theoretically, the technology can reveal what you're thinking about, or dreaming about. Is that totally weird ... or totally scary? You be the judge.

Now, if we just had a contraption that could "read the mind" of the stock market, and spit out the exact set of stocks we should buy that day!

But since we don't have that, I'll continue to do my best to "Kreskin-ize" the stock market myself, and feed you the highest probability plays of the day.

It would not have hurt a bit to be somewhat of a market "mind reader" today. While the Dow did its best to end up in the green, it did not quite make it. It ended down a little over 27 points, and its chart looked like the path of a drunken sailor all day.

The Nasdaq was a little more orderly, as buying came in on a plethora of tech stocks. That index ended the day up almost 18 points.

Anyway, I need to get back to my market mind reading...