] As remarkable as the cat-drawing lesson was, it was just
] a hint of Snyder's work and its implications for the
] study of cognition. He has used TMS dozens of times on
] university students, measuring its effect on their
] ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult
] mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by
] sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test
] subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental
] skills. That Snyder was able to induce these remarkable
] feats in a controlled, repeatable experiment is more than
] just a great party trick; it's a breakthrough that may
] lead to a revolution in the way we understand the limits
] of our own intelligence -- and the functioning of the
] human brain in general.

and to think I've been taking drugs to actually try and STOP this kind of behavior.

As remarkable as the cat-drawing lesson was, it was just a hint of Snyder's work and its implications for the study of cognition. He has used TMS dozens of times on university students, measuring its effect on their ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental skills. That Snyder was able to induce these remarkable feats in a controlled, repeatable experiment is more than just a great party trick; it's a breakthrough that may lead to a revolution in the way we understand the limits of our own intelligence -- and the functioning of the human brain in general.

] The Medtronic was originally developed as a tool for
] brain surgery: by stimulating or slowing down specific
] regions of the brain, it allowed doctors to monitor the
] effects of surgery in real time. But it also produced,
] they noted, strange and unexpected effects on patients'
] mental functions: one minute they would lose the ability
] to speak, another minute they would speak easily but
] would make odd linguistic errors and so on. A number of
] researchers started to look into the possibilities, but
] one in particular intrigued Snyder: that people
] undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS,
] could suddenly exhibit savant intelligence -- those
] isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most
] often appear in autistic people.

Weird ...