Boffins at California Institute of Technology have carried out an experiment to link brains to machines.

They claim volunteers have been able to make screen images appear and fade away simply by thinking.

As this illustrative image shows, on cue they could quickly make a particular image, such as Marilyn Monroe or former US president George Bush,

In the case of the experiment there was a very noble reason - diagnosing what makes epileptics have seizures.

However, naturally one's own mind thinks to other applications - for example astronauts communicating instantly, engineers able to 'think' the image of a correct procedure for a crucial repair to someone on the scene of, say an oil platform disaster.

But let's face it, men being men (I can't speculate about the state of a woman's mind), someone will be at the last stage of a vital complex where one mistake will mean disaster when an image not dissimilar to the following pops up: