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How I Became a Cyborg and Joined an Underground Medical Movement

posted by janrinok on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the wired-for-health dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

A man with metal horns protruding from his forehead and a split tongue poking out between his teeth advanced toward me with a scalpel. "I've never done this before," he joked, inching closer.

A full-sleeve tattoo snaked out from beneath his black T-shirt, extending from a demon on his bicep to a skull on his fist. My eyes darted between skull and scalpel, then instinctively shut as I cringed, bracing for contact. Zack Watson, the inked-up body modification artist I'd hired — and drove seven hours from New York City to see — was about to sew a magnet under my skin.
...
Biohacking enthusiasts have tinkered with electronic tattoos and subdermal — underneath-the-skin — implants for two decades, sharing their efforts in videos on YouTube and internet forums to spread and encourage innovation. Proponents believe smart implants represent the future of wearable technology, potentially making humans healthier and more efficient while providing new opportunity to consumer-technology companies such as Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.34% and Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -0.71% GOOG, -0.57% that are investing heavily in technology that could revolutionize health care.

All of these predictions [quoted in the article] come as global adoption of wearables is forecast to boom. Juniper Research, which tracks consumer technology trends, expects world-wide wearable shipments to reach 420 million by 2020, more than four times the 80 million shipped in 2015. A similar surge is predicted for medical devices, with shipments projected to triple to 70 million over the next four years.

Trans-humanism has been around for a while, but the article focuses on the investment capital that is now flowing into the area.

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  • (Score: 1) by Stardaemon on Thursday November 17 2016, @02:54PM

    by Stardaemon (4294) on Thursday November 17 2016, @02:54PM (#428122)

    Any idea how this would interact with an MR-scanner?
    Would you be nervous about having an MR-scan?

  • (Score: 2) by jcross on Thursday November 17 2016, @04:18PM

    by jcross (4009) on Thursday November 17 2016, @04:18PM (#428177)

    Yeah, I believe it would be ripped out of your finger in an instant, hopefully travelling away from the rest of your body. Even tiny pieces of non-magnetic ferric metal are dangerous in an MRI machine. They normally won't even let you do it if you're a metalworker for fear of tiny chips of steel that might be embedded in your skin or eyes. I know a metal sculptor who lied about his occupation because he really needed the scan. Nothing went wrong for him but it probably was a bit of a gamble.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @11:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @11:39PM (#428494)

      Metalworkers who don't have embedded chunks or big slivers sealed in scar tissue can sometimes wait six months and then get an MRI. This is long enough for residual dust in the lungs and eyes to be bioprocessed.

      One doesn't always have 6mo.