ScienceAlert: Telepathy might sound like science fiction, but scientists have already achieved direct brain-to-brain communication between humans...and they've managed to read the minds of cats too. Telepathy may be best known in science fiction, but over the past 20 years, scientists have made huge breakthroughs in achieving "mind links" in real life, as the latest episode of BrainCraft explains.
And, naturally, it all started with cats. In the late 1990s, scientists connected electrodes to the visual areas of cats' brains while they watched a film. This allowed them to "hack" into their thoughts, and replay the movie through the eyes of the cats. Put simply, this means they were able to translate cat thoughts into real, moving images, which is pretty damn impressive.
Recently, scientists have taken things a step further and have managed to achieve direct brain-to-brain communiation between someone in France and someone in India. It's an incredible feat, but we're still a long way off Jedi mind control, as Vanessa Hill explains in the episode above.
Check out the video to find out more about why brain-to-brain communication is still slower than email, and to find out more about the crazy way we could talk to each other in the future