Medical technology has grown by leaps and bounds, so much so that a lady recently received a 3D printed skull implant. Well, implants are nice and good, so how else are they able to help humanity out? Take this unique brain implant for instance – researchers over at the A*Star Institute of Microelectronics in Singapore have managed to come up with a neural probe array that is so tiny, it will remain within one’s brain on a long-term basis without causing any damage to the surrounding delicate tissue.
Neil Harbisson is someone very special, as he claims to be a color blind artist who is able to ‘hear’ the various shades and hues, courtesy of a medical implant deep within his skull. This is definitely not the first time that a brain implant has helped humanity, as we have seen how a brain implant helped a 17 month old boy hear for the first time in his life.
Scientists have apparently come up with an orgasm machine, where it is capable of delivering a climax at the single push of a button. This particular idea hails from a surgeon in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the point of its existence is not to lead the whole world into a constant state of pleasure, but rather, to treat folks who suffer from orgasmic dysfunction. It will require surgery, of course, as the medical implant which is sized smaller than a packet of cigarettes needs to be placed within your body before it can work. Medical trials of this unique device are tipped to kick off later this year in Minneapolis.
A brain implant in Alex Frederick’s brain has allowed the little boy to hear for the first time in his 17 months of living, thanks to the presence of a brain implant that was performed in a Boston hospital. This particular device has yet to be approved in the United States for children, but this move ought to help change the perception. In fact, it has been implanted directly into his brain so that he can hear. It was not too long ago that Alex’s parents tried for a cochlear implant, which happens to be a 40-year-old technology that relies on electrodes to stimulate auditory nerves, but the surgery was not successful. With the Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI) however, a tiny antenna which has been implanted on the brainstem allows one to pick up signals from a small microphone that is worn on the ear, before relaying them back inside to the brain’s segment that is associated with interpreting sound in the form of electrical signals.
Medical science has certainly advanced by leaps and bounds over the years. Remember those old school hearing aids? Well, the modern day ones are a whole lot smaller and work better, but what happens when bionic parts are introduced to the body without requiring any kind of exterior hardware to work? Imagine a cochlear implant which will charge itself wirelessly, relying on the natural microphone of the middle ear instead of a skull-mounted sensor to work. Imagine no more, as researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL) have teamed up with physicians from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) to work on a spanking new low-power signal-processing chip which could eventually result in a cochlear implant does not need any kind of hardware on the outside to work. A full charge would enable it to run for approximately 8 hours, now how about that?
Some time ago, we talked about how a woman decided to get creative by implanting a platinum heart into her eyeball as a fashion statement of sorts, which certainly did not go down well with certain quarters. After all, having something invade our bodies is not an experience that most folks would be comfortable with, and the needle is also a fearful thing to face for some of us. However, there are times when vaccines are necessary, but what if there was a new kind of technology that does away with injections? Scientists at the University of Minnesota are currently working on a new vaccine implant which will deliver all the vaccines you need based on a time release format, which means there are no more trips to the doctor for shots down the road.
The vaccine would be administered via a small tablet that has been been implanted in your arm beforehand, which means you will still need to face the needle – but at least only once instead of multiple times. After that, you would receive a prescription for a bunch of pills that are required to be consumed based on specific days so that the correct vaccine dose will be activated. Each time a pill is swallowed, the implant in your arm would then release a different vaccine dose, all the way until the entire routine is complete. Once done, the implant would dissolve by itself.
We’ve seen people implant some interesting things into their bodies, such as the dude who implanted headphones into his ears or that guy who implanted a large biometric computer chip into his forearm.At least those two people had legitimate reasons to implant those objects into their bodies, but a heart sequin implanted into an eyeball? There’s just no reason for this. (more…)
Some guys are just super hardcore. Like Rambo hardcore. Able to stitch themselves up on the battlefield hardcore. Take this guy for instance. A man named Tim Cannon is a “biohacker,” and he had himself opened up and inserted a computer chip in his arm -with no doctor helping. I must be a wimp, because there is no way I could do this.
Don’t try this at home kids. Being a walking computer just isn’t worth it. Tim had a large “Circadia” board implanted into his arm. It is even larger than normal due to a special case. The chip is powered by a battery but can also be charged wirelessly.
This chip sends all of Tim’s biometric signals to an Android device. He would have used a doctor, but he says that no certified doctor could preform the operation to implant the device. So he had a “body modification enthusiast” named Steve Haworth do the surgery. Sadly for Tim, Steve isn’t an official medical practitioner, so he wasn’t licensed to use anesthetics. That had to be painful.
Here’s an update from Tim showing off the wireless charging process for his arm-implanted computer:
Have fun monitoring your biometric signals, Tim. My idea of fun is playing video games.
We learned a long time ago people love their technology, with some even going as far as implanting them into their bodies. Earlier this year, we saw a man implant headphones into his ears, and today we’re seeing a man who put a computer inside of his arm. (more…)
It looks like there is no need for a telepath like Professor X in our reality to do the tricky job of memory implants, as there is always good ol’ science to fall back upon. It seems that scientists have successfully implanted false memories into mice, and this is made possible via optical fibers that have been inserted into a mouse’s brain activated memory forming cells. This will, in effect, implant false memories, although it is a pity that we do not have the likes of a talking mouse like Mickey to tell us that the false memories of Donald Duck getting down with Minnie implanted within are actually true.
This scientific team managed to make the mice wrongly associate a benign environment with a previous unpleasant experience, all from different surroundings, without the mouse actually being in such a situation. This development could very well be the key in shedding light on how false memories could have happened in the case of humans, although I do believe that it will take quite some time before that can happen. Hopefully this work does not mean that we will end up with false memories unwittingly.
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