It's always really exciting . . . and not at all unsettling . . . to see stories about how good machines are getting at READING OUR MINDS.

In a new study at UCLA, brain scans did a better job of predicting people's future behavior than the people themselves could predict.

For the study, researchers showed participants messages about wearing sunscreen.  They observed the people's brain waves while they watched, to see if their brains reacted positively or negatively to the idea of wearing sunscreen.

Then, they asked the participants if they planned on using sunscreen during the following week.  And a week later, they had the participants come back for a surprise follow-up about whether they actually ended up using sunscreen.

What they found:  The predictions from the brain scans were MORE accurate than the participants' own predictions.

If someone's brain didn't react strongly to sunscreen but the person said they were going to wear it . . . they probably didn't end up wearing it after all.