Andrew Junker uses his thoughts to steer his specially designed sailboat.

In "Mind Over Matter," ex-Air Force researcher Andrew Junker is working towards the day when you can sail a boat, fly a jet or move a computer's cursor around the screen just by thinking about it. In fact, Junker himself already can.

An electrode-studded headband picks up the electric signals generated by Junker's brain. With practice, Junker has taught himself to increase or decrease those signals. The electrodes transmit these thought waves to a computer, which translates them into directions. Junker has rigged his sailboat to respond.

With this special cap, Jim Jatich uses brain waves to activate the FES in his left hand.

The potential applications are unlimited- for a while the U.S. Air Force even thought it might be useful in helping pilots take on the complex task of flying jets. There's one hitch; learning to modulate one's brain waves is extremely difficult. In fact, no one quite knows how it's done. But certain test subjects have mastered the skill, including Jim Jatich, a quadriplegic who uses the technology combined with FES (see "Nerves of Steel" ) to open and close his left hand, the use of which he lost in an accident in 1977.

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