Are you ready to have a microchip implanted into your brain? That might not sound very appealing to you at this point, but this is exactly what the big pharmaceutical companies and the big technology companies have planned for our future. They are pumping millions of dollars into researching "cutting edge" technologies that will enable implantable microchips to greatly "enhance" our health and our lives.

Of course nobody is going to force you to have a microchip implanted into your brain when they are first introduced. Initially, brain implants will be marketed as "revolutionary breakthroughs" that can cure chronic diseases and that can enable the disabled to live normal lives. When the "benefits" of such technology are demonstrated to the general public, soon most people will want to become "super-abled".

Just imagine the hype that will surround these implants when people discover that you can get rid of your extra weight in a matter of days or that you can download an entire college course into your memory in just a matter of hours. The possibilities for this kind of technology are endless, and it is just a matter of time before having microchips implanted into your brain is considered to be quite common. What was once science fiction is rapidly becoming reality, and it is going to change the world forever.

But aren't there some very serious potential downsides to having microchips implanted into our brains?

Of course there are.

Unfortunately, this technology is not as far off as you might think, and most people are not even talking about what the negative consequences might be.

According to a recent article in the Financial Times, the pharmaceutical company of the future will include a "bioelectronics" business that "treats disease through electrical signalling in the brain and elsewhere."

Diseases such as diabetes and epilepsy and conditions such as obesity and depression will be will be treated "through electronic implants into the brain rather than pills or injections."

These implants will send electrical signals to cells and organs that are "malfunctioning". People will be totally "cured" without ever having to pop a pill or go under the knife.

It sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, the Financial Times says that British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is working very hard to develop these kinds of technologies. Moncef Slaoui, the head of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, says that the "challenge is to integrate the work - in brain-computer interfaces, materials science, nanotechnology, micro-power generation - to provide therapeutic benefit."

If a brain implant could cure a disease that you have been suffering from your whole life would you take it?

A lot of people are going to be faced with that kind of a decision in future years.

THE GIST

• The history of police in the United States has been intentionally decentralized from the outset.
• The prospect that the U.S. will ever become a police state is remote.
• Americans and our law enforcement agencies have a skewed sense of true risks.

Ever since a midnight shooting at a movie theater in Colorado left 12 people dead and 58 wounded a little over a week ago, conversations have focused on gun laws and violence. Often overlooked in those discussions, though, are questions about the role of police protection in the United States: How much is enough and how much would be too much?

After the Dark Knight shooting, the New York Police Department mobilized to cover screenings of the film to thwart copycat crimes. And while that kind of reaction offered a sense of security to many moviegoers, a permanent police or military presence at all theaters and other public places would likely seem a little too Big Brother for most Americans.

Even if there were a public outcry for constant police surveillance, experts say, the American system of policing is far too decentralized to make that possible, making it highly unlikely that the United States will ever become a police state.

At the same time, debates continue about whether the American police system actually defends U.S. citizens from real threats or if we're blinded by a skewed sense of risk-assessment.

Ecuadorean diplomats seek UK assurances that WikiLeaks founder will not be extradited to US after proceedings in Sweden.

The Ecuadorean government is seeking to avert the "evil" of the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, according to a senior legal adviser to the country's embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has sought sanctuary with a view to claiming asylum.

Diplomats for the small Latin American country said they had been seeking assurances from the UK that Assange would not be extradited to the US after the completion of legal proceedings in Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual assault.

Lawyers for Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorean embassy for five weeks, believe there are secret plans to extradite him to the US to face trial, possibly for conspiracy to commit espionage. If found guilty, the 40-year-old could face life imprisonment.

The US pumps tons money abroad for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it ignores the country's very own infrastructure problems. Five years after a bridge collapse in Minneapolis left 13 people dead and 150 injures, Rachel McCleery of the Urban Land Institute Initiative asks RT's Kristine Frazao of America has bother to invest in its own infrastructure.

Hundreds of millions of dollars has been wasted on Iraq reconstruction with relatively little progress to show. Apparently infrastructure failures abroad are not isolated to just Iraq either, though. A new report shows a large amount of the US government's 400 million dollar investment in infrastructure in Afghanistan in last year was wasted as well. RT's Kristine Frazao brings an analysis.

A US criminal inquiry against WikiLeaks frontman has reached an "unprecedented" size and scale, Julian Assange's lawyer told RT. Sweden, on the other hand, seems to have turned a deaf ear to all offers to interview Assange anywhere in the UK.

Sweden has turned down Ecuador's invitation to question Assange at its London embassy, WikiLeaks' Twitter reports. The news is yet to be confirmed by officials from either country.

The frontman of the whistle-blowing site has been holed up in Ecuador's diplomatic mission for over six weeks now, seeking political asylum. Assange lost an extradition appeal in the UK Supreme Court in May and will be sent to Sweden once British law enforcement manages to get hold of him.

In Sweden, prosecutors are investigating a sex crimes case against Assange. The scandal-stirring whistleblower is wanted for an interview, as no official charges have been put forward yet.

Revelations about the smuggling of arms to anti-government terrorist groups in Syria via the US Air Base in Incirlik in Southern Turkey sparked popular protests in the country.

According to FNA dispatches, Head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Parliamentary Group Oktay Vural has summoned the country's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the parliament to answer questions about Turkey's cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Qatar for smuggling arms and ammunition to the Syrian terrorists from Incirlik base.

Vural pointed to media reports about a secret command center in Turkey's Adana province, home to Incirlik air base, which is operating in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply the terrorists in Syria with military and communications aid, and asked Ankara to answer to questions about the secret military base.

He also asked Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to provide the parliament with the exact number of the Syrian refugees in Turkey and their settlement place.

Terrorists in Syria brutally executed 15 civilians in the Northwestern city of Aleppo on charges of supporting the Bashar al-Assad government.

The terrorist members of the so-called Free Syrian Army on Tuesday attacked Al Berri family in Bab al-Neirab neighborhood in Aleppo who are famous for their pro-government stances, and kidnapped 15 family members and executed them in front of a local school.

The terrorists also kidnapped and killed Sheikh Ali Abdulaziz Al Berri, a family leader.

Syria's Documents Center has released footage of the brutal execution in Aleppo.

The latest reports said that the Syrian Army has been able to retake control of Bab al-Neirab.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

Yasser Arafat's widow and daughter have formally demanded a French judicial investigation into his death after filing a complaint of "assassination" in a Paris court.

Suha and Zahwa Arafat believe that Arafat was poisoned with polonium before his death eight years ago in a French military hospital.

Pierre-Olivier Sur, the family's French lawyer, said the request was intended to "establish the truth in memory of their husband and father."

"This complaint of assassination is directed against X - Suha Arafat does not accuse anyone: neither a state, nor a group, nor an individual," he said.

"Suha and Zahwa have complete faith in the French justice system,"

Earlier this month, Palestinian authorities gave final approval for Arafat's body to be exhumed.

First look at the pictures of what look like soldiers patrolling Iraq lined up to stop the small, 300 person march against police violence in Anaheim.