15 ms·
I hacked my body for a future that never came
- rubatuga 9y agoDidn’t people do this to seem counterculture/edgy? I mean, it looked kind of cool the first time I read about it, but that was only because of the novelty factor. That sixth sense doesn’t really help us, and I’m pretty sure that more animals would have a magnetic sensor if beneficial. Some pigeons have magnetic sensors to determine their orientation to the earth.
- lithos 9y agoA little glad I missed out on this when it was fadish (even unused ear piercing can get males in trouble for being out of regs in the military). Though it did for a while get me interested in senses we lose because we don't have words for them. Color identification along cultures/languages being the easiest to actually prove.
- kaffeemitsahne 9y agoIn what way do you suppose we've lost "color identification"?
- achr2 9y agoThere are languages with a single word for blue and green.
- colorsarefun 9y agoPeople who speak a language where two given colors have the same name will have more difficulty telling them apart than someone who speaks a language where those two colors have different names. https://vimeo.com/120808489 https://vimeo.com/120808489
- knolax 9y agoI checked out the biohack.me forum mentioned in the article and it's really disappointing that the only implants currently being tried are either magnets or NFC/RFID chips. I was expecting to find a vibrant sub culture with all sorts of new ideas for implants being tried out.
- kanzure 9y agonah just skip the NFC/RFID stuff and go straight to actual research projects http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/implants/ http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/implants/ I think wireless power induction should be one of the minimum requirements. Also this is another related community: https://groups.google.com/group/diybio https://groups.google.com/group/diybio
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoI never asked for this. If you can perform all these tasks with your smartphone cheaper and without invasive surgery, you can't really call it an augmentation or upgrade. Frankly, if implantable magnets and NFC/RFID chips are the full extent of the contributions of the biohacking community, then the community completely lacks imagination and creativity. We can use radio waves to measure heart rate and breathing and use that data to measure a person's emotional state. It would be interesting to see someone hack together an internal sensor that does this and have it attached to implantable led's, so your body could "glow" particular colors based on your emotional state. Or use electronic ink tattoos to make an animated gif on your body. Just copying the same two uninspired trends isn't what I would call hacking.
- kanzure 9y ago> Frankly, if implantable magnets and NFC/RFID chips are the full extent of the contributions of the biohacking community, then the community completely lacks imagination and creativity. Don't let the grinders get in the way of progress :-) There are many at-home genetic engineering folks that don't proselytize implants every n seconds: https://groups.google.com/group/diybio https://groups.google.com/group/diybio The downside to this other community is that the general public has an overbearing fascination with bioluminescence (sigh): http://www.the-odin.com/gene-engineering-kits/ http://www.the-odin.com/gene-engineering-kits/
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoiGem always produces some fascinating projects, amazing high school kids! : http://igem.org/Main_Page http://igem.org/Main_Page There's also this BioHacker Space in SF that seems to have interesting meetups: http://biocurious.org/projects/ http://biocurious.org/projects/ Although it's not auto-biohacking, some group created yeast that produces thc, allowing for marijuana infused beer
- kanzure 9y agoagreed about igem, i worked on a list of one-sentence summaries of all the previous igem projects: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/dna/projects/#igem-2014 http://diyhpl.us/wiki/dna/projects/#igem-2014
- Terr_ 9y ago> Another panelist shut them down immediately: doctors and scientists aren’t even close to solving the phantom pain and limited mobility that most amputees face, let alone building something uniformly better than a human limb. To repost a slightly tounge-incheek description of features your "standard model" has: 1. Supports a very large number of individual movements and articulations 2. Meets certain weight-restrictions (overall system must be near-buoyant in water) 3 Supports a wide variety of automatic self-repair techniques, many of which can occur without ceasing operation 4. Is entirely produced and usually maintained by unskilled (unconscious?) labor from common raw materials 5. Contains a comprehensive suite of sensors 6. Not too brittle, flexes to store and release mechanical energy from certain impacts 7. Selectively reinforces itself when strain is detected 8. Has areas for the storage of long-term energy reserves, which double as an impact cushion 9. Houses small fabricators to replenish some of its own operating fluids 10. Subsystems for thermal management (evaporative cooling, automatic micro-activation)
- Qantourisc 9y agoNice list. BTW the current models often fail practically at #3 getting a repair would often be easier, instead of a long road to recovery ;)
- nielsole 9y ago11. Worldwide standardization, lots of repair shops available with the right tools available. 12. Comes in many different shades of skin color, individualized just right for your body. 13. Full compatibility with other body parts, e.g.immune system lung heart
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoSuper nitpick: I would say "density restrictions" in #3. Weight, unfortunately, remains a largely unsolved problem.
- __m 9y agoI'll take one. No, make it two.
- Houshalter 9y ago
- anotheryou 9y agonorth, electro magnetic fields. Before we implant anything, we need an interesting small sensor in general. Any small sensor that does anything interesting for me? Requirements: For prosthetic learning it must react fast and the signal should change with muscle/body movement. How I wire the signal to my body is antoher issue, but first show me an interesting sensor. Best I can come up with is remote temperature sensing, still booring.
- QAPereo 9y agoI wonder if enhancing existing senses might end up being easier than engineering new ones, at least in the short term.
- anotheryou 9y agoRight, while I still want X-ray vision, night vision might be more feasable. Our body is pretty good at all the relevant stuff of our physical world :). And in the digital the interesting stuff is high-level or can be automated or removed.
- icebraining 9y agoI disagree, our body is pretty limited. Pretty limited field of vision and weak detection of dangerous gases and liquids, for example. Also, flaky sensors too. My mother recently had a couple of episodes of BPPV[1], and in the process I found that a lot of people have it at some point in their lives. A friend of ours had vertigo for almost a month(!) and was absolutely incapacitated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_v...
- QAPereo 9y agoEnhancing the flaky sensors strikes me as easier than adding new ones, and new ways of processing them. We're not necessarily suited to more input.
- 9y ago
- p1mrx 9y agoHas anyone attempted a modification (electronic or pneumatic) that lets you hear your own heartbeat 24/7? That might be useful for monitoring and controlling your health and emotional state.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoThat sounds like a modern, self-inflicted version of the tell tale heart.
- p1mrx 9y agoYet another reason to abstain from murder.
- dennyabraham 9y agoIf you're interested in doing this, with a little mindfulness training you can learn to passively notice the pace of your own heartbeat all the time, without modification.
- jrowley 9y agoYeah, all I need to do is concentrate and I generally can feel it. Helps to be somewhere quiet for me.
- curun1r 9y agoHow about a spiritual modification? During periods of prolonged meditation, I've been able to pay attention to my heartbeat. It wouldn't surprise me if more skilled meditators were in tune enough with their bodies to be able to monitor it during other times as well. Just because we've learned to tune out signals from the body like heartbeat doesn't mean that, with practice, we can't tune back into them.
- rcarmo 9y agoBelieve me, you don't want to do that. One of the side effects of my sinus trouble is that I "hear" my heartbeat (not just throbbing), and it took me years to learn how to tune it out and not have it feed a feedback loop that led to some very stressful moments (140bpm resting).
- LeoNatan25 9y agoJust the description of the nonsense these two have done gave me a shiver. The toward the MRI part, I prepared for the worse. Had he forgotten about the magnet, it could have gone really bad. And I think to myself, what a ridiculous world.
- Houshalter 9y agoDo they run patients through a metal detector before putting them in an MRI?
- microwavecamera 9y agoI had to get an MRI for my knee (old injury) and all they did was ask me if I had any medical implants or sustained any injuries where I might have had metal enter my body.
- Herodotus38 9y agoThe hospital/clinic will ask a series of questions that are risk factors for having metal in your body. Here is a typical form (no association) [pdf]: http://radiology.ucla.edu/workfiles/referralforms/MRI-safety-screening-questionnaire-outpatient.pdf http://radiology.ucla.edu/workfiles/referralforms/MRI-safety... If the patient isn't able to answer or is unsure it gets a little complicated based on the risk factors, how soon the image is needed, etc.. Sometimes screening imaging of the orbits (eyes) is done if there is a history of metal working or a CT head/orbits (bullet fragments in brain = no bueno), chest X-ray if you can't get documentation on a pacemaker, and so on.
- Houshalter 9y agoThat seems a lot less efficient than a metal detector. Perhaps they just aren't sensitive enough?
- Herodotus38 9y agoWhile I don't know enough about metal detectors to know how sensitive they are, I suspect someone has looked into it because there would be a lot of money to be made/saved if you could, for example, use a detector to confidently rule out metal fragments in the eyes. Bear in mind these fragments are <1 mm, and if you are wrong and the powerful magnet moves it even a couple mm you could blind a person or worse!
- Mz 9y agoone futurist gushed over a visually striking prosthetic arm, musing that it might be worth amputating for the “upgrade.” Another panelist shut them down immediately: doctors and scientists aren’t even close to solving the phantom pain and limited mobility that most amputees face, let alone building something uniformly better than a human limb. You can upgrade your current arm by eating better and going to the gym. If that isn't enough to get the visually striking look you are after, tattoos and the right clothes can help. I can't believe there are nutcases in the world ready to embrace becoming a Borg. This is bizarre.
- nawitus 9y agoYour comment is silly. Accusing someone of being a "nutcase" is not constructive, nor is a comment about becoming a Borg. Yes, at the moment it's not plausible to upgrade one's arm. In the future it will become plausible, though, and the upgrade will at some point be much better than what you can do at a gym. In fact, you can only get a stronger arm at the gym (or an arm with more endurance), but a bionic arm can be much better.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> Your comment is silly. Accusing someone of being a "nutcase" is not constructive, nor is a comment about becoming a Borg. Your comment is stronger without this.
- Mz 9y agoMuch better in what way? I have had reason to become somewhat familiar with what happens to the body when organs are transplanted with natural organs from other people and when metal pins are used to repair damaged parts and so forth. None of it is anywhere near as good as keeping your own parts functional and healthy to begin with. It all comes with serious complications, and I think people vastly underestimate just how bad it really is. I think it is far worse than people think.
- icebraining 9y agoSure, currently it is. But that's not written in stone. Lots of medical procedures used to have huge mortality rates and extreme side-effects, and are now much better, often even just a couple of decades afterwards.
- analognoise 9y agoNot many people are impressed with this silly shit to have it done to them? You know, I don't often say this, but the general populace was right on this one.
- booleandilemma 9y ago"Hacking your body" the way this article describes seems more pathological than anything. It's like people who fetishize about getting amputated.
- Sleeep 9y agoIsn't wanting to explore novel sensations and experiences pretty normal?
- icebraining 9y agoPeople have always altered their bodies for improvement. Cutting off parts of their penises (circumcision), perforating their skin for earrings and piercings, shooting lasers at their skin to destroy their organs that produce hairs, etc.
- collyw 9y agoI am struggling to see the "improvement" in having a magnet in your finger. What use was it, because she describes a number of downsides?
- icebraining 9y agoI'm not talking about that particular modification, just in general.
- vertex-four 9y agoWe said the same about piercings, and tattoos, and a variety of body mods before this. What makes bringing technology into the mix pathological?
- kogus 9y agoTo be fair, I would still say the same thing about all of those, too.
- 9y ago
- FRex 9y agoI came to the same conclusion instantly at the moment of my first encounter of a finger magnet idea on YouTube - "Cool, but I want a ring that does that and that I can tune, replace and put on and take off at will...". Alternatively: nanites like in DX1 and DX2.
- Mz 9y agoFrom the article: The better wearable devices get, the less sense it makes to permanently modify your body. Things like exoskeletons, smart glasses, and external brain-computer interfaces are safer and much easier to upgrade than their implanted counterparts. Plus, you can take them off in inappropriate situations: you won’t get stuck trying to swim with a metal limb, for example, or wearing a permanent version of Google Glass to a laid-back dive bar. I really think wearables make vastly more sense for enhancing ourselves than this kind of body modification.
- FRex 9y agoYes, I read the article, that's why I said I came to the same conclusion ("wearables > implantables"). My 'ring' answer for magnet in finger was just an example of a counterpoint in such a debate between these two transhumanism approaches. I of course approve smart glasses, rings, bracelets, wearables, exoskeletons, etc. over implants, surgeries and metal bones (Wolverine from X-Men excluded ;). Of course nanites easily trump wearables but they are way too far into the future at this point I'd think.
- Mz 9y agoI think I misunderstood your comment.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoI still want a finger magnet, because having it inside your body next to your nerves makes it way more sensitive than any external device could be. On the other hand, I'd much rather have a North Paw anklet (https://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/ https://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/) than that implanted compass. I love the idea of using technology to augment my body and mind, but that doesn't necessarily require implantation. On the third (cybernetic) hand, I totally understand the almost fetishistic excitement for full-on cyborgization. If I had to have a limb amputated, that would suck a lot, but getting to customize and show off a prosthetic would be a real silver lining for me. If I could electively replace a healthy hand or arm with a mechanical one that was categorically equal or superior, I would consider it. But I'd never accept a loss of real function just to look cool.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoMagnets wear out? I didn't know that. How come?
- jimmies 9y agoEntropy man. You think that a whole bunch of neatly aligned atoms would stay that way over time?
- gyrfghg3 9y agoOf the options below, select the most common mistakes you've come across?
- gyrfghg3 9y agoOf the options below, select the most common mistakes you've come across?
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoEventually, sure, but I have crappy old fridge magnets that are still going strong after 30 years. What's different about little neodymium rods that they fail in 5?
- bitwize 9y agoI think it has more to do with that your body builds up scar tissue around the magnet that makes its wiggles inside your body less palpable, than that the magnet itself weakens.
- qplex 9y agoNo. She couldn't attract metal objects with the magnet anymore. "Bottle caps refused to leave the ground, and finally, stopped responding altogether."
- xaa 9y agoObviously this article is full of self-modification for fairly whimsical reasons. It's easy to make fun of. But this kind of problem is more serious and discouraging when you think about aging. You know cells in each organ are going to mutate, get protein aggregation, fibrosis, and so on. Instead of trying to figure out something to do about each of those things individually at the molecular level, it might seem simpler to just replace organs periodically. Every 20 years, just get a new heart, etc. Nontrivial and risky, of course, but perhaps less so than the even less-developed alternatives. But as TFA points out, surgery is hard on the body, and the body likes to reject transplants, be they biological or mechanical. Integrating vasculature is hard, integrating nerves is REALLY hard. So in short, I think even if these particular applications are frivolous, hopefully people who are doing this will help push forward knowledge on the general question of "how do you add/replace/integrate body parts safely and robustly". They are truly pioneers, in all senses of the term -- they're pushing forward the frontier at great personal risk.
- kanzure 9y agoReplacing organs (for now) is a task that often involves immunosuppression. Perhaps it will be possible to work around this with techniques like gene therapy + xenotransplantation: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/hgp-write/2016-05-10/transplantation/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/hgp-write/2016-05-10/trans... In the mean time, there's also some work that can be done on the the anti-aging front by picking very simple mutations that cause delayed aging phenotypes (skip to "longevity" section): http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/ http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/
- xaa 9y agoI work in aging research. A very nice set of notes you have there. The field is not really thinking in this direction. By "picking" mutations, I suppose you mean gene therapy. As you probably know, NIA does not consider aging a disease, just a risk factor for other diseases. So we cannot possibly test anything remotely risky in humans for the treatment of aging, and that certainly includes both transplants and gene therapy. We have to backdoor our way in via stuff like Alzheimer's, dementia, sarcopenia, etc, and it seems unlikely that most gene therapy interventions that target aging per se would have enough efficacy on that kind of disease to justify the risk. They are too advanced already. Even so, this is the kind of thing I think about while driving to work, frustrated at the slow pace that occurs while working within the system :) I am inclined to agree that the problems with transplantation, both biological and mechanical, are mostly solvable though. I think the kinks will have to be worked out in other fields where prosthetics, surgery, and gene therapy have a better perceived risk/reward ratio than aging.
- leggomylibro 9y agoYeah, I got mine out after a few years. It lost sensitivity as magnets do, and I didn't want to pinch a nerve. They have new ones that are much slimmer now, but also much more difficult to remove...I passed. We actually do have promising 'batteries' for this sort of application as of 2017, though; lithium hybrid supercapacitors. They're roughly an order of magnitude worse than Li-Po batteries today, in energy density and cost. But the advantages over LiPos are a higher ~10C charge/discharge rate, no thermal runaway "Galaxy S7" issues, and a maximum charge retention rate on the order of 80-95% after 10,000 cycles should let them last decades at least. A very compact 100F/24mAh module is available today at 1.8-2.7V from Murata, and I think Taiyo-Yuden has offerings too. I think we're still making progress. Anyone buying one of those magnets knew they were buying into an alpha version of a product; it's not like we asked the FDA to approve things first.
- Animats 9y agoNot a good choice for implanted batteries, but possibly the replacement for the power storage unit for EMALS. The electromagnetic catapult on the Ford-series carriers apparently works fine; it's the flywheel energy storage system which powers it that's giving trouble. They need something they can charge up in a minute or so and then discharge in a few seconds. Ultracapacitors are starting to look good compared to the flywheel thing.
- mirimir 9y agoI did the opposite, in a sense. I ignored my body for a future that did come, contrary to expectation. During the 60s-70s, every year without nuclear holocaust seemed like a gift. Now I deal with it. So it goes ;)
- tzs 9y agoWould it be possible to re-magnetize an implanted magnet that has weakened over time? Or would that require exposing them to very strong magnetic fields, which would rip them out of the body? (I've seen videos of magnet manufacturing, and when they exposed the new magnets to strong fields to magnetize them, they were always firmly clamped in place so they would remain stationary).
- raziel2701 9y agoYes you need high magnetic fields to re-magnetize a magnet. Seems like you need between 1 - 2T magnetic field to saturate a rare-Earth magnet. So it's not something easily achievable in a homemade setup.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoI think that bio hacking has lost it’s initial hype but it does have a chance to jump the chasm if it got a killer app. Or even creating non invasive ways to perform the current set of tasks.
- micimize 9y agoAuthor throws their uninformed and limited view of injectables against their previous empty and uninformed optimism for wetware grinding due to their #fingermagnetennui (which to be fair is No Joke™), is saddened. Includes such deep insights as: • Stitching a cellphone into your arm maybe isn't the future • Replacing body parts for fun doesn't make sense yet • biohacking is in decline because Trump was elected
- nextlevelwizard 9y agoThe thing is there hasn't been many (if any) technological break throughs in past 7 years (since the end of 2010) that would conceivably be used for bio hacking. The title is bad and the author should feel bad. How did she think magnet in finger would be "prepare" her for the future? It was a gimmick and it worked for years. What more could she ask for?
- Mothra555 9y agoIt's merely a future that is much further out. Scientists and doctors aren't even close to being able to interface man made technology to nerve endings and brain waves in a way that could compete or enhance the natural. The same is true with AI and machine learning that is supposedly due to destroy humanity any minute now. It's all a bunch of hype. I quit subscribing to Popular Mechanics and the like many years ago because they were always so hyped with the next big breakthrough that never happened. It was science fiction (which I do love to read, but not when it is proclaimed as reality). People buy into these cults and do bizarre things like this all the time, people want so badly to believe the comic books. The narcissism of man is on full display with things like this. Do you realize just how little we understand about anything? Any field of science, medicine, exploration, psychology, philosophy. All whose pillars of truth are overturned regularly. I wonder why people are so stupid as to believe the next thing the surgeon general recommends them to eat or not eat, just to have that completely changes 5 years later. People basing their child rearing on psychologists whose studies cannot be reproduces almost 90% of the time. Here is my philosophy. Wither you believe in creation or evolution, look back to learn how our bodies should stay healthy. The things we should eat and not eat. The exercise we should do. Look back before man started screwing things up (I'm talking hunter gatherers here). Use common sense when taking care of the planet. Look how interdependent everything is and don't screw that up. Use your head, don't listen to someone else's hype. They are just trying to make a buck or gain power and influence.
- bitwize 9y agoThe things that get hyped when they're fiction stop being hype when they become real. I used to watch Beyond 2000 and marvel at the tantaluzing future it promised me: wireless phone calls using a grid of "cellular" microtowers, vision corrective surgery with tiny cuts made into the cornea, athletic shoes that provide extra cushioning with small gas-filled chambers in the heel. Cellphones, LASIK, and Air Jordans are just part of the fabric of everyday reality now. We've seen their benefits but also their drawbacks. As they became widespread consumer products and services, not just experiments in a lab someplace, thwy lost their sheen and became the new normal. But we still live in wonderful times, even if we choose not to see it.
- elvinyung 9y agoThe bit about wearables reminds me of this quote from Neuromancer: > He stared through the glass at a flat lozenge of vatgrown flesh that lay on a carved pedestal of imitation jade. ... it was tattooed with a luminous digital display wired to a subcutaneous chip. Why bother with the surgery, he found himself thinking, while sweat coursed down his ribs, when you could just carry the thing around in your pocket?
- im3w1l 9y agoI feel like a magnetic piercing would be more practical than putting it fully under the skin.
- beambot 9y agoBody hacking of this nature hasn't gone away... It's just getting more sophisticated with actual medical uses. For example, a paper I coauthored at RFIC 2017 based on work done at Google[x] / Verily Life Sciences: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7969066/?reload=true http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7969066/?reload=true Abstract: A wireless system-on-chip with integrated antenna, power harvesting and biosensors is presented that is small enough, 200µm x 200µm x 100µm, to allow painless injection. Small device size is enabled by: a 13µm x 20µm 1nA current reference; optical clock recovery; low voltage inverting dc-dc to enable use of higher quantum efficiency diodes; on-chip resonant 2.4GHz antenna; and array scanning reader. In-vivo power and data transfer is demonstrated and linear glucose concentration recordings reported. Edit - PDF copy of paper: http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implantable_sensor.pdf http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implan...
- libeclipse 9y agoCody from Cody's Lab on YouTube did this a while ago. It was really cool. He's done a few videos on it, including putting it in and taking it out.