Mind reading is a staple of science fiction. In the original Star Trek, for example, Spock would occasionally perform the Vulcan mind meld, in which he splayed his fingers across another person's face while intoning: “My mind to your mind; my thoughts to your thoughts.” It was fun stuff, but not something most scientists of the time took seriously.
But they were wrong. It is becoming increasingly possible to read what is happening in people's brains, though not with mysterious Vulcan telepathy. It uses computers and an imaging technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and it's leapt straight from science fiction to front-page news. At the moment, its uses are limited, but how long will that last? Will we soon be truly able to read people's minds?
Next-gen imaging
Conventional MRI of the type used in medical exams is tuned to detect the hydrogen atoms in water, from which it can create 3D images of everything from sports injuries to tumours. fMRI uses the same scanner, but focuses solely on the brain, and is tuned to detect oxygen. This allows it to determine the rate of oxygen usage in
