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Scientists based at the University of Southern California will soon begin animal testing of the world’s first brain prosthesis–basically a mathematical model of the hippocampus mapped onto a silicon chip. The prosthesis may eventually help people whose brains have been damaged and cannot form new long-term memories. A potential problem with such an application, according to a March story in New Scientist: subjects might not remember consenting to receive the implant. (Not to mention that nearly everyone is glad to be able to forget traumatic experiences–and an artificial hippocampus might force a patient to remember everything.)
In March former Northwest Airlines flight attendant Daniel Reed Cunningham was charged with drugging the apple juice of a 19-month-old girl who wouldn’t stop squirming and crying during an August 2002 international flight. The mother became suspicious after noticing blue and white specks in the juice; she took some home in a container, and tests revealed the presence of the antianxiety medication Xanax.
In February the British ad agency Cunning Stunts began paying college students about seven dollars an hour to walk around in public with corporate logos semipermanently tattooed on their foreheads. And in December another British agency launched a “dogvertising” campaign for client Sony Ericsson–large dogs such as Saint Bernards and Great Danes are draped with ads, and in return their owners get free dog-walking service (of course, the animals are taken to parks and other well-trafficked areas).
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