Lunch Break: Scientists Read Minds, FBI Caught

By Connect Mason News Director Elizabeth Stern

Daily items of interest from all over the news and blog feeds.

CGE may not actually be ripping you off as much as you suspect. A website devoted to tracking currency exchanges found that the U.S. dollar is worth a mere 67 cents overseas. Transportation, housing and luxury items are reported as the largest financial setbacks for students abroad. If London is calling, make sure you shop around for a good calling card.

Scientists have developed technology which can actually identify what you are seeing and record images your brain processes. By measuring blood flow caused by neural activity, it is hoped that the scanner can be used for things like obtaining objective witness testimony, detect mental disease and even record dreams. If it’s true that men think about sex every seven seconds, this could get a little awkward.

The FBI was found, for the fourth straight year in a row, guilty of abusing Americans’ privacy. Citizens’ telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic information were accessed without being properly authorized by a judge during 2006. Banks, telecommunication companies and other businesses were partly responsible for volunteering more information than was asked. These unauthorized investigations were intended to obtain information about potential terrorists.

An Israeli researcher is publishing a study this week claiming Moses was high on drugs when he heard God list the Ten Commandments. Professor Benny Shannon says concoctions using bark from the acacia plant, commonly present throughout Bible, produce effects that are similar to ayahuasca, a powerful drug that can produce hallucinations. Shannon believes some of the experiences written in the Bible are characteristic of how one perceives one’s surroundings while on the drug.

Quick—don’t die! Or at least check if you failed to notice you’re in the process of dying and also happen to be in Sarpourenx, France. The mayor ordered residents not to die, threatening “severe punishment” to offenders. Mayor Gerard Lalanne cited an overcrowded cemetery as his reason for making the demand of the town’s 260 citizens. Good thing studying abroad is so expensive you probably wouldn’t be caught…well, dead, over there anyway.