If we could do THIS in 1940, what now?

If you think about it, the brain and body have a symbiotic relationship, the brain needs the body and the body needs the brain. Damage one or the either too badly and they will both die. Funny that, brain dead, for something to die it would have to be alive... lack of oxygen is a quick way to kill the brain or damage it a lot.

Talking about technology from after the world war...

The technology had been demonstrated in
principle as early as World War II. It was already in
operation in certain limited applications by the
1950’s. Despite these successes, however, its fur-
ther development lagged.

In the ensuing decades, from the 1950’s
through the present, Basic Energy Sciences re-
searchers pioneered much of the evolving research
on ion implantation. Their early results stimulated
research by others and broadened considerably the
scope of applications. Their continued research,
along with that of others, contributed significantly
to the eventual emergence of ion implantation as an
established production technology.
Today, implantation is a worldwide enterprise
valued at several billions of dollars per year. Thou-
sands of ion implantation machines are at work
around-the-clock producing speciality parts vital
for business, medicine, science, and defense. Prod-
ucts range in diversity from long-lived surgical bone
implants to some of the most sophisticated semi-
conductors for computers.

Technically, ion implantation is simply a
means of inserting atoms of one kind or another into
the surfaces of solids. Any species of the Periodic
Table of Elements can be selected for implantation
with almost absolute purity. Precisely controlled,
the technique affords good reproducibility, an im-
portant feature for commercial applications.

The emergence of ion implantation as a
practical technology is scientifically rooted in the
early days of atomic energy research and related
studies of energetic particles and their interactions
with solids. This field of research, then known as
radiation damage, was motivated by a need to un-
derstand the effects of radiation and their impli-
cations for reactor engineering and materials de-
sign.
The radiation damage of interest was mainly
that caused by neutral particles, or neutrons. The
use of ions came into being because they proved to

be more convenient for some experiments. Ions
created damage similar to that caused by neutrons,
but they had other advantages. They did not cause
the samples to become radioactive, were cheaply
produced, and easily focused and controlled using
electrostatic and magnetic fields.
www.osti.gov/accomplishments/documents/fullText/ACC0004.pdf

So the bombs they tested in the 1940's were not testing the bombs but rather using the energy and radiation to experiment and study...

[edit on 23-10-2009 by Xenus]