Remember when you were really little and your parents or teachers would tell you to “put on your thinking cap” to solve problems? It turns out that there really is such thing as a thinking cap, and it looks a lot like the headband-type contraption in the image above. According to a recent study from Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney, small electric shocks can make you temporarily smarter, more creative, and a better problem solver. You probably can’t tell, but the woman in this picture is being gently shocked in the brain with a small amount of electricity. And because of it, she is better able to solve problems like the nine dot puzzle below.

The puzzle (on the left) is not solvable by the majority of the population under normal circumstances. The instructions are to connect all of the dots with four continuous straight lines without lifting your pencil or backtracking. The solution, on the right, was reached by no participants without electrical brain stimulation. But after 10 minutes of the treatment, 40% of participants came up with the right answer right away. There are apparently no lasting effects – good or bad – from the treatment, so you could put on that thinking cap for a quick brainpower boost before a test and not have to worry about leaving with fewer brain cells than you had before.

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The Japanese military must really want to know what you look like in your undies, because it’s developing a flying spy sphere that will be able to follow you almost anywhere and see what you’re up to, even if you try to run from it. While it isn’t nearly as menacing as the shiny metal sphere from Phantasm, it is just as tenacious. Currently the flying sphere is controlled by a human-operated remote control, but in the future it might be equipped with an autonomous flight system.

The video above is a Japanese news report about the flying spy orb. We can’t understand what the reporter is saying, but some things don’t need to be translated. The orb flies with a single small rotor near the top of the assembly and contains a camera within the sturdy cage. The camera is partially obscured by the cage itself, but that tough exoskeleton is necessary for keeping the camera safe on the battlefield.

Going under the working title of “spherical flight vehicle,” the orb only has a battery life of eight minutes currently. That’s definitely not enough to spy on enemies in battle or gather intelligence in remote locations. Still, development is ongoing and eventually the flying sphere’s spying capabilities will be enough to scare the socks off of anyone who dares venture onto the bad side of the Japanese military.

The post Flying Spy Sphere Will Follow You Around, Freak You Out first appeared on Gajitz.