And as the city glows, electric people nobody knows Electric dreams, nobody shows

A few weeks ago over at B⁴ there happened to be a discussion about bio-fluorescence and Brainbows, and the good name of the Riddled Research Institute and Mad Scientist Anti-Defamation League was dragged into it, on account of our experience in skull transparency.

Designer transparent skulls and flashy brains in 3... 2...
You writing for "Riddled" now?

In the interests of fair play and full disclosure and forestalling copyright lawsuits, we would like to acknowledge the pioneering contributions of S. Delany in the field of cranial transparency techniques.

This is also an apposite moment to point out the dangers of using fluorescent markers to distinguish neural networks, i.e. making Brainbows. For here at the Research Institute & MSADL we are all about responsibility. Using our proprietary Alternative Time-stream Observation Technology to avoid having to do any work ourselves see what went down in other realities, we are in a position to pass on the following ominous news:

1. It is a Bad Idea because in 28% of time-streams it leads to experimental subjects looking like trippy hippie Alex Grey paintings.*


2. The other 72% of alternative time-streams are lazy buggers who avoid doing any research of their own and prefer to use their proprietary technology to observe our own efforts.

3. In 6% of that 28%, the genetic modifications for transparency escaped from laboratory confinement and crossed over with a murine endo-retrovirus to result in a new breed of transparent mouse.
Come to think of it, invisible mice would certainly explain the disappearance of the chocolate Hob-nobs from the smoko room.

4. It is a especially Bad Idea because in 23% of time-streams, popular press reports of neuro-fluorescence discoveries appeared under headlines about "The Body Electric". We are not quite sure how an Electric Body differs from the usual kind, but it seems to convey a sense of 'intangibility' or 'aether' or even 'plasma'.

The iron-cast laws of Morphogenetic Resonance predict that once a a first weather report has appeared about electric bodies and singing, it is easier for similar choral performances to occur in the future. Itemising all the different US, Canadian and UK bands calling themselves "The Body Electric" is left as an exercise for the reader (not to mention New Zealand's own Kraftwerk wannabees from the early 1980s).

Further investigation revealed that you can't talk about "The Body Plasmatic" within earshot of Another Kiwi without him turning all hot & bothered and going on about the late lamented Wendy O.

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* Or in 2% of timestreams, like Pavel Tchelitchew paintings.

Right: When invisibility goes wrong

Bonus Bodies Electric from Arthur Tress...

...and from the Wellcome Institute.