Last month, Drs. Joshua Freedman and Marco Iacoboni of the University of California at Los Angeles finished scanning the brains of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Each viewed images of President Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader.

[…]

Freedman came to political brain scanning through his brother Tom, who served as a consultant to President Clinton. Tom Freedman asked his neuroscientist brother if the technology could improve on how campaigns woo voters.

“No one had done fMRI with politics,” Dr. Freedman said. “So we decided to see what we could find.” —Dems, GOP: Who’s Got the Brains?  (Wired)

Of course, someone is going to use this advanced scanning technology to exert power, but the average person is already so ignorant about the power of media to manipulate their behavior… this is just creepy.

I like Wired because it often archives the AP stories that I want to blog… but I can’t say I care much for its new sex columnist. It’s not like Salon’s marketing strategy (sex, politics, sex, technology, and sex) has been hugely successful.