We don't know if you're familiar with Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune where the Ixians supply machines that operate with just a thought, but for sure this news tells us of the possibility of such machines existing.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a technology that enables neuroscientists to read brain scans and basically predict your thoughts: the next muscle you're about to move, your feelings, desires and behavior. In an experiment done by John-Dylan Haynes, a researcher at Germany's Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, he had a computer predict the pattern in people's reactions as read by a brain scan.

The pattern was then used to predict that person's next move. Why would anyone want to predict this? If you're paralyzed and unable to walk, talk or speak, a machine that predicts what you'd like to do next would be helpful.

However, Haynes' experiment gave its subjects only constrained choices, so that the computer will easily predict their decisions. Free will was not included, as the idea of people changing their minds would totally wreck the experiment.

As of now, science and technology are able to read a person's thoughts, but only if these thoughts are made from a very specific set of choices. Humans can rest easy. Our thoughts can still be free.

Not familiar with the Freman Stillsuit? Didn't bother to read Dune? Well this development by researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science might just get us a few steps closer to Frank Herbert's water recycling suit.

The Team of researchers have apparently developed a new reverse osmosis membrane that promises to reduce the cost of seawater desalination and waste-water reclamation.

Reverse osmosis desalination basically uses extremely high pressure to force saline or polluted waters through the pores of a semi-permeable membrane. Water passes through, salt-ions and other impurities don't. Presto. Purified recycled water.

Developed by civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Eric Hoek and his research team, the membrane uses a cross-linked matrix of polymers and engineered nano-particles designed to draw in water ions but repel nearly all contaminants. The filter works at nano-scale.

Moreover, because the membranes repel particles that might ordinarily stick to its surface, the new membranes foul more slowly than conventional ones. The result is a process that is just as effective as current methods but more energy efficient and potentially much less expensive.

Initial tests suggest the new membranes have up to twice the productivity — or consume 50 percent less energy — reducing the total expense of desalinated water by as much as 25 percent. Yes, because of the high pressures required, this technology is currently applicable at an industrial level. But what if? Perhaps in the future we'll all be drinking our urine and our feces, just like the Fremen.