In 2001, on the eve of the US-led invasion into Afghanistan, soldiers are fortified with more than just guns and bullets. Many, especially the pilots, were on Provigil produced by Cephalon in the US. The drug is designed to treat narcolepsy but allows pilots to stay awake, and operational, for up to 85 hours at a time.

What works for the military soon becomes popular elsewhere. Scientists and stressed executives were soon pushing cognitive enhancers into off-label areas of use. Provigil is popular, but so too is Ritalin (usually prescribed for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder), Aricept (used to treat Alzheimer's disease), and Adderall (used for both narcolepsy and ADHD).

In the seminal short story, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon documents his experiences following surgery designed to enhance his intelligence. Charlie gradually becomes one of the most intelligent people on earth before tragically suffering a reversion and dying. Keyes, however, had tapped into the curious pursuit of cognitive enhancement that has driven scientists to take unusual risks with their own lives.

On 19 April 1943, Swiss chemist, Dr Albert Hofmann of the Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland, intentionally ingested 250ug of Lysergic acid diethylamide; LSD. Its hope as a mind-enhancing steroid has proven a disappointment, despite energetic disciples such as Timothy Leary.

However, the pursuit of synthesized drugs that would provide cognitive enhancement is still an area of tremendous activity.

Stop, you're embarrassing me

The Oxford English Dictionary defines embarrass as an act or emotion that causes a person ‘to feel awkward or self-conscious or ashamed’. It can be personal, as when attention is drawn to something private or to one’s personal flaws. It can be professional, as when evidence is disregarded or when an official course of action is abandoned.

Embarrassment is usually accompanied by some physiologically-expressed features such as blushing, sweating, nervousness, fidgeting, even stammering. In circumstances where social etiquette is breached, nervous laughter is often a response, which can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted.

The physiological repertoire that accompanies the emotion of embarrassment is strings of biochemistries the pathways for which are reasonably well understood. The biology of blushing, for example, is known to involve particular chemicals flowing towards particular destinations. We also know which biochemical producing cells are involved.

Sweating is well understood too. Nervousness is less well understood. Stammering and fidgeting are behavioural sequences linked in part to the nervous system and brain. How the whole system coordinates to produce the emotion of embarrassment in response to particular cues has not yet been fully documented.

"I am frustrated... that we are preventing the advancement of important science that could potentially impact millions of suffering Americans... My hope, and the hope of so many in this country, is to provide our researchers with the means to explore the uses of embryonic stem cells so that we can begin to turn the tide on the devastating diseases affecting our nation and our world." The speaker echoes the feelings of many researchers who would like to follow their investigations to their logical conclusions but are prevented from doing so by the vagaries of politics.

But this was no idle comment, for the words are those of Barack Obama, president-elect of the US.

The proposed change would lift federal funding restrictions on research that uses embryonic stem cells. These are harvested from human embryos which are specifically donated for this purpose.

The change in policy coincides with success in adult stem cell therapy, as well as tremendous growth in genetic lifestyle products entering the market.