Remote control device 'controls' humans

The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation — essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance. It causes humans to move or lean to one side or another via pulses through a headset-like device. Timothy Hullar, assistant professor of Otolaryngology at the School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., believes finding the right way to deliver an electromagnetic field to the ear at a distance could turn the technology into a weapon for situations where "killing isn't the best solution."

"This would be the most logical situation for a non-lethal weapon that presumably would make your opponent dizzy," he said via e-mail. "If you find just the right frequency, energy, duration of application, you would hope to find something that doesn't permanently injure someone but would allow you to make someone temporarily off-balance."

Indeed, a small defense contractor in Texas, Invocon Inc., is exploring whether precisely tuned electromagnetic pulses could be safely fired into people's ears to temporarily subdue them.

•	Remote control device 'controls' humans USA Today, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2005 Byline: Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press

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