Neuromarketing: Mining the Mind. Researchers at Emory University are getting federal funding to conduct "neuromarketing" studies--MRI research geared toward determining which parts of the brain react to different types of advertising and making marketing more effective. In a Dec. 1 letter to the university's president, Commercial Alert's Gary Ruskin questions whether Emory's attempts to locate the brain's "buy button" breaches the Belmont Reports standards for ethical experimentation on human subjects. If so, they risk losing federal funding. Writes Ruskin, "It is wrong to use medical research for marketing instead of healing. If Emory University doesn't stop this immediately, we will do everything in our power to shut down Emory's federal funding."

Also: There's a Sucker Born in Every Medial Prefrontal Cortex.