1. High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System – You heard it here.  These are small high power laser weapons, i.e. weapons that shoot energy beams at the speed of light.  That’s fast.
2. High Productivity Computing Systems – a.k.a. Super computers a.k.a. SKYNET from the Terminator mythos.
3. Machine Learning – Cognitive machines.  Hmmm.  Again, we’ll reference SKYNET and Terminator.
4. Neuroscience – In specific, projects that’ll create brain-machine interfaces.  Is this putting us one step closer to The Matrix?
5. Real-Time Accurate Language Translation – Tower of Babel my ass.
6. Space – , here we come.

Scary, but real, stuff.  You can find the full report here.

Which one of these research projects would you most like to see come to fruition?

When we hear the word Vulcan, our thoughts wander to the Star Trek character Spock, his home planet, and his people.  The VULCAN Engine Program is appropriately named since it is a “propulsion system demonstration effort to design, build, and ground-test an engine capable of accelerating a full-scale hypersonic vehicle from rest to Mach 4+.”

This could be our first steps towards a “warp drive” propulsion system like the one that propels the Enterprise across vast distances in space.

Read the DARPA News Release here (via DARPA’s news room.)

DARPA is moving project ISIS into its demonstration phase.  ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is Structure) is a military project with goals to launch an autonomous statospheric-based airship equipped with supercharged sensors for surveillance.  The lightweight structure will hover high above earth for years and be capable of tracking objects as small as a child from up to 300 km away.

But, the idea of hovering surveillance structures troubles privacy groups like the Anti-Satellite Sympathizers.  A.S.S. founder and president Neil Kaminskigee said the following: “It’s just one more step towards a totalitarian police state, in which every square inch of earth has a dedicated ‘surveillance camera’ to watch over citizens.”

Others see this as another step towards floating airbases and cities.  Population control organizations have promoted the idea of permanent, stratosphere based structures to help alleviate overcrowding on the surface of our planet.

Read the press release from DARPA here.

The researchers say they’ve been able to induce gamma waves in the brains of mice.  Gamma waves are high frequency brainwaves tied closely to consciousness.  The scientists applied optogenetics, a technology that uses light in conjunction with genetic engineering to control specific nerves, to achieve their goals.

“Brain Lasers” have a variety of applications, including mind control.  In its most frightening incarnation, a soldier armed with a “Brain Laser Rifle” would be able to fire at his enemy’s head and scramble their brain so they’d be unable to tell friend from foe.  Or, the laser could be calibrated to shut down the enemie’s higher brain processes, reducing them to a moaning, zombie-like creature.  However, there is no evidence yet to suggest the research is being used to produce weapons of any kind.  Stay tuned to The Loki Times for continuing coverage.

Brain Lasers.  Too dangerous for mankind?  You decide.