Come on, Pentagon, you can tell me. You're not really working on making soldiers who can stay awake for a week at a time are you?

I'll bet you're just trying to find ways to keep awake at your rave parties. That's it isn't it? I can see you all now boogie-ing the nights away, laughing at the ones who drop out after 24 hours non-stop dancing.

When I first read the article (extracts below) in The Telegraph, I was a bit alarmed that you were serious, - I mean anybody would be, wouldn't they? 

Talk of pilots being "zapped when they needed it" makes one wonder if, when their service time is over, and they decide to take up civilian jobs with airlines, they will have come to expect being "zapped" before undertaking any serious manoeuvres, - like landing and taking-off.

That bit about human "junk" DNA also got me for a while. I think that was because of the "so far" qualifier. I suppose you could always move on to the next bit when some inconsiderate person identifies the original purpose of the part in question.

How are you actually going to administer these "bonus points"? Are they going to be reversible, or is the chosen one going to be forever stuck in a five days or more waking pattern? The neighbours will love it.

That, of course brings another possibility to light, - that after the technique is refined, everyone will be subjected to non-stop "zapping" over the courses of their working lives.

That would certainly streamline industry. I'm sure the possibilities haven't gone unnoticed. Forty years worth of wasting say, 128 hours per week, - allowing for working a 40 hour week now, if put to good use courtesy of frequent "zaps", would provide 30.4 years extra time, or, shorten the working life to a mere 10 years.

The extra 30 years would presumably be used to catch up on the missed sleep. The hibernation gene in bears might come in handy here.

I have a feeling that soldiers who have read about this prospect will already be running and running.

Extracts from The Telegraph:-

January 6 2003

     The Pentagon has launched a series of remarkable medical experiments to find a way to keep its soldiers and pilots awake and alert for up to five days at a time..........

     .........The Pentagon's search for an Extended Performance War Fighter concentrates on employing advanced genetics and neurological science, rather than the drugs .........

     .....Jan Walker, the spokesman for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, confirmed that the Pentagon was "working out ways to resist the effects of sleep deprivation. .....

     One of its plans for keeping warriors awake is to "zap" their brains with an electro-magnetic energy called TMS. ......

     ......."When he needed it, the pilot could just be zapped during operations," said Dr Stern,.....

     ......"I am convinced that we can help the Pentagon. I have identified the parts of the brain that seem to control the response to sleep deprivation, and we have the technology to stimulate that part to improve the resistance to lack of sleep. The generals want a man who is awake and alert for up to a week. We think we can actually do that."

     The idea now is to identify the genetic material which allows this, and find it in human "junk" DNA - those parts of the human genome which so far do not have an identified function. Genetic codes could then be modified to create soldiers who run and run.

The Telegraph, London

        Tollrose says: "I rest my case".