Then comes the big moment in telekinesis. When Belle resumes her game, the scientists put the signal from her brain on the Internet and pipe it 600 miles north to a robotic arm at MIT. Sure enough, it starts dancing like a ballerina in exactly the same fashion as Belle’s arm.

WORK is advancing rapidly. Four profoundly paralysed humans equipped with a “BrainGate” implant created by the biotech firm Cyberkinetics have demonstrated their ability, with just their thoughts, to check and send e-mail; turn televisions, lights and appliances on and off; and control a wheelchair. Monkeys equipped with brain-controlled artificial arms have learned how to guide food to their mouths. A monkey in Nicolelis’ lab recently controlled a humanoid robot in Japan. But the most spectacular work has centered on neural control of mechanical arms, hands and legs. The goal of a programme funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is to soon produce intelligent artificial limbs controlled by your nervous system that will allow you to pitch a fastball, thread a needle or play a piano.

AS A MIND-reading location, your forehead has only one significant advantage. “It’s a horrible place to get signals. But that’s the only place most people do not have hair,” says Stanley Yang, chief executive of NeuroSky. “Hair is not conductive.”

NeuroSky is in the forefront of turning brain-computer interfaces into cheap consumer items. It’s selling brain-reading hardware and software headsets to all comers—including Christmas competitors like Mattel’s $80 Mindflex and Uncle Milton’s $130 Force Trainer, both of which involve levitating a ping-pong-like ball. NeuroSky has its sights set on providing brain-wave sensors for the automotive, health-care and education industries.

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