The Soviet Union's arms race with the United States during the Cold War included an expensive effort to develop mind-control weapons, the Physics arXiv Blog reports. Drawing on a new paper published by researcher Serge Kernbach, the blog describes the USSR's extensive efforts around what they called "psychotronics" — the equivalent of America's own experiments with parapsychology. Among the results: the Soviets developed a device called a "cerpan" intended to generate and store high-frequency electromagnetic radiation produced by the human brain in hopes of influencing other objects. For more on Kernbach's research, check out the blog.