If you watched V and They Live in the '80s, you know that aliens are masters of mind control. Which is why you also know that even if the new V's Anna isn't Diana, it's just a matter of time before she gives some Earthling an "attitude adjustment" -- perhaps in the form of a subliminal television message. What you might not know is that lately, humans have developed some mind control methods of their own.

Gero Miesenböck and his colleagues at the University of Oxford were able to manipulate fruit flies by exploiting their fear of pain, even if the pain was only in their minds. By stimulating specific brain cells with a flash of laser light, the researchers gave the flies fake memories of a painful experience and, says Miesenböck, "These memories cause a lasting modification of the flies' behavior." Perhaps the laser light showed the flies images of a formaldehyde face -- that was enough to give Nada the creeps.

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Tired of waiting for the new Buck Rogers movie? One minute it's on; the next it's off. Forget about it. Soon, you can be Buck Rogers. Turns out, the preposterous plot device that started the hero on his journey (he falls into suspended animation after exposure to a gas leak at an abandoned mine and awakens unharmed 500 years in the future) isn't so preposterous after all: Scientists now believe a poison gas could put humans into hyper-sleep.

The idea is the brainstorm of Mark Roth, a biologist looking to extend the life of patients in need of emergency care. His work suggests a radical new way of thinking about survival. He found he could keep fish embryos, fruit flies and even mice alive in a state of suspended animation by taking away their oxygen. There is a catch: if you deprive them of some oxygen, they suffer cell damage and die, but if you deprive them of almost all oxygen, Roth says, "You get a state of suspended animation and the creatures do not pass away." In short, if you can't get the oxygen you need, it's better to have no oxygen at all. Though, don't try telling that to an intrepid astronaut who's lost his helmet in the vacuum of space.

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The military has a new recruitment tool, and I'm not talking about the bad economy -- though it has helped boost troop levels. I'm talking about a lightsaber-like device that could bring Star Wars fanboys into the fold. Forget about a signing bonus. How about a chance to use a special issue plasma knife that effortlessly cuts through flesh with a "blade" of glowing ionized gas?

According to a Pentagon budget document, Special Operations Command recently "completed ongoing testing and field evaluation studies" of a "wearable low-power plasma knife" which, in description, sounds like a little lightsaber. But before you sign up to fight like a Jedi Knight, read on. The device wasn't tested as an "elegant weapon for a more civilized age." It's a medical device meant to treat injured soldiers on the front lines, more akin in application to Star Trek tech.

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Ready for your robot doppelganger? While we can't yet use robots the way they do in Surrogates, today's technology suggests the time will come when we can. When that happens, each of us will be faced with a choice: Live life from the safety of a "stim chair" or face the world in person like the Dreads. (Agent Tom Greer, Bruce Willis, chooses the latter; a decision made easy by the fact that unlike everyone else in the movie, he's better looking than his robot replacement and there's also the possibility that using it could get him killed.) But what will you do when faced with a chance to live life differently? Can't wait to find out? Here are four ways to get your surrogate on today:

Buy Mattel's Mindflex
For just $80 you can find out what it feels like to control something synthetic using only your mind. That something isn't an android body double -- it's just a small ball -- but still! When you concentrate the ball will rise; relax and it will fall. Simply put on the wireless headset and use your brainwaves to move the ball through the obstacle course presented. If the game gives you a headache or fails to hold your interest, you'll probably end up in the Dread camp.

3D Your Face
Why wait for the year 2017 to see your face frozen in 3D on your surrogate when you can experience this creepy feeling today? Thanks to thatsmyface.com, you can get a life size portrait tile made of your face -- or the face you plan to eventually put forward. Better yet, they'll put your head on a 14-inch MechRC Robot which you can then control. Using a game-style remote, make the new you perform some hardcore dance moves without even breaking a sweat. That's just a taste of what your robotic body will be able to do.

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In the 1980s, moviegoers learned that being a Real Genius meant making sure the technology you developed didn't fall into the wrong hands -- and by "wrong hands" the movie meant the U.S. military. Most audiences were happy to see a group of nerdy tech students, led by Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) and Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret), prevent the government from acquiring a megawatt laser weapon capable of vaporizing human targets with extreme accuracy. But for those that think the immature students let their need to get even get in the way of national security, good news: Real geniuses at Boeing are making great strides with their real life Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) weapon system -- and they want the Air Force to use it.

In 2002 Boeing started the $200 million project and this summer members of the 413th Flight Test Squadron successfully fired their high-power laser for the first time in flight. The specially modified 46th Test Wing NC-130H aircraft equipped with the ATL weapon system hit a target board located on the ground while flying over White Sands Missile Range, NM. Apparently, Boeing employees are more serious about getting the job done than students at "Pacific Tech," who run around in bunny slippers avoiding responsibility.

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Contrary to popular belief, the blind really can lead the blind -- and maybe everyone else as well. An ambitious research project has enabled visually-impaired subjects in the U.S., Europe and Mexico to regain some of their sight using an innovative device called an artificial retina. Might this mean the end of blind people developing those extra-keen auxiliary senses, like Daredevil's ultra-accurate hearing? Perhaps, but it could also herald a new era of super-sensory devices like Geordi La Forge's VISOR on Star Trek.

Here's how it works: A study participant wears glasses containing a tiny camera, along with a video processor strapped to his waist. Images from the camera are analyzed by the processor and converted into configurations of light and dark. That information is then transmitted to a sheet of electrodes surgically implanted into the patient's eye, and the visual signal travels from there to his brain via the optic nerve. So far, the improvements are limited to light and motion detection, and the ability to differentiate between objects. (You'll still need 20/20 if you need to, say, eject a warp core.) But as the technology improves, researchers -- led by James D. Weiland and Mark S. Humayun of USC -- expect that reading, writing and facial recognition will be possible.

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As any of the X-Men can tell you, it ain't easy being a mutant. But if you have an ability like Wolverine's -- which heals all his nicks, scrapes and abrasions -- well, life gets a little more manageable. (This is one guy who never needs to worry about cutting himself shaving.) That's why scientists are hard at work finding ways for us non-Homo Superiors to enjoy Wolvie's regenerative mojo -- and now, it seems, they've succeeded.

Dr. Ning Zhang, an assistant professor of bioengineering at South Carolina's Clemson University, has developed a hydrogel that's proved successful in treating traumatic brain injury in rats. To test the substance, she bopped rats on the head, inflicting damage similar to what a person would sustain in a bad car wreck. Then she injected a liquid into the wound site that contained three neural growth factors. Once inside the body, the liquid became a gel that spurred the creation of new blood vessels and caused the rats' stem cells to form new neurons. (The gel, it seems, shares Mystique's shape-shifting mutation.) The process isn't nearly as fast as Wolverine's speedy healing -- recovery took twelve-ish weeks -- but the rats did regain nearly all their original faculties.

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According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there is an art, or rather a knack, to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. If that seems too difficult -- or potentially painful -- a group of scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena has devised an alternate method. Working on behalf of NASA, they successfully levitated a mouse using only a superconducting magnet and some pixie dust. OK, actually just the magnet. But that's only because the mouse wasn't headed for Neverland to join Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

No, the airborne critter, a svelte ten grams and only three weeks old, is an integral part of ongoing research into how to counteract bone and muscle loss during extensive time in low gravity, such as might occur on long space missions. A strong enough magnet will repel water in the body, causing said body to defy gravity. Earlier experiments involved frogs and grasshoppers (and strawberries), but since people are more genetically similar to mice than to amphibians or insects (or fruit) the effects on the mice are expected to provide a better representation of what might happen to human astronauts. Will they stay strong and fit, able to comport themselves in mid-air with grace and glamour like Neo in The Matrix? Or will they become all hideous and snot-covered, like Regan in The Exorcist?

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Why settle for the eye of the tiger when you can have the eye of The Terminator? Babak Parviz, a bionanotechnology expert at the University of Washington in Seattle, is developing a contact lens with an embedded CPU that can both gather and transmit data. It will provide the wearer with easy access to "augmented reality," or sensory information ramped up with computer power. And it will do more than just help you acquire targets, or decide whose leather jacket would fit you best.

If you've ever watched a televised football game and noted the first down line superimposed over the image of the field, or wandered through a museum listening to audio commentary about the exhibits, or used a GPS to navigate unfamiliar terrain, you've benefited from augmented reality. But all those options require an external device, when it would be so much more convenient to have the facts in your head. Compare the tricorder in Star Trek: The Motion Picture -- very useful, albeit a little clunky -- with Geordi LaForge's VISOR in Star Trek: Generations, which is both functional and fashionable. But even that is so... obvious.

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In the 1997 thriller Gattaca, Ethan Hawke goes to great lengths to hide his DNA from a society that's determined his cells are not up to snuff. If only in the movie's future, he had discovered what a group of Israeli scientists have recently proven -- that it's entirely possible, and not even that difficult, to falsify DNA evidence.

According to the abstract, "It turns out that standard molecular biology techniques... enable anyone with basic equipment and know-how to produce practically unlimited amounts of in vitro synthesized (artificial) DNA with any desired genetic profile." Meaning that with just a little wherewithal, Ethan Hawke might have been able to avoid storing copious amounts of an Olympic athlete's urine (what is he, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency?), taking those uncomfortable exfoliating scrubs, and oh yes, chopping off his freaking legs.

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