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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson

Focusing  
  Psychoactive microbe improves the attention-focusing ability of those infected.  

The mindrot is a plague that was turned to the service of civilization. It "spreads through the brain in a nearly harmless way, infecting about ninety percent of the glial cells. And now we control the release of neuractives."

"Focusing ennobles. It is the key to Emergent success, and a much more subtle thing than you can imagine. It's not just that we've created a psychoactive microbe. This is one whose growth within the brain can be controlled with millimeter precision - and once in place, the ensemble can be guided in its actions with the same precision."

"Don't you see? We can improve the attention-focusing aspects of consciousness: we can take humans and turn them into analytical engines." She spelled it out in wretched detail. On the Emergent worlds, the Focusing process was spread over the last years of a specialist's schooling, intensifying the graduate-school experience to produce genius...

For many days, Reynolt and her technicians had tweaked the virus, triggering genetic expression that precisely released the chemicals of thought - all guided by Emergent medical computers that gathered feedback from conventional brain diagnostics.

Technovelgy from A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge.
Published by Tor in 1999
Additional resources -

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from A Deepness in the Sky
  More Ideas and Technology by Vernor Vinge
  Tech news articles related to A Deepness in the Sky
  Tech news articles related to works by Vernor Vinge

Focusing-related news articles:
  - Will Scientists Learn How To Fine-Tune Autism?
  - Optogenetics - Fiber Optic Brain Control
  - Remote Control Of Brain Activity

Articles related to Medical
MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking
Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans
Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI

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