Implants for Sensing Magnetic Fields

Okian Warrior writes "Wired is running a story about people who have magnets implanted in their fingertips. As a result they can sense ambient magnetic fields, including whether AC wires are carrying current. From the article: 'The fingertip was chosen because of the high nerve density, and because the hands are constantly interacting with the environment, increasing the chances of sensing electromagnetism in the world.'"

Comments

Great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Until something happens to the magnet, as documented here. (don't click if you don't want to see a finger being sliced open to remove the magnet)

Re:The Penis is next

[Elwood P Dowd]

Just definitely stay away from MRI machines with that thing.

Warning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone thinking of having this done should check this out first. Ouch...

In case this sounds like a good idea...

[St. Arbirix]

It's not.

Re:In case this sounds like a good idea...

[MustardMan]

A few points...

Tom Brazda is no "hack". He is one of a handful of people who PIONEERED the modern body modification scene. He invented a lot of the tools and techniques that can be found in any piercing studio on the beach today. He helped push the industry to its limits, while also helping spread word about how to do things as safely and carefully as possible. People like Tom are the reason every respectable studio on the planet has an autoclave.

Second, Shannon Larratt is no idiot. A risk taker, sure. Someone who uses his own body as a testbed for the untried? Absolutely. But an idiot? Not a chance. He knows exactly what he's doing, and he knows the risks. He's written countless articles about the safety aspects of piercings, tattoos, and more extreme body modifications. He's quite well aware of the risks, and indeed most likely purposely chose to have Tom do the removal because that way he could document every step of the process for others to learn.

Third - read the article more carefully. Another person with the same implant went to a doctor to have it removed. The Dr. fucked it up. The local emergency room person may or may not do the same. The problem with Doctors is, just like everything else in the world - there are ones who are good, and there are ones who are not. A perfect example of this is doctors who tell people with an infected piercing to remove it and shoot them up with antibiotics. This can often be a VERY bad idea, because the piercing can no longer be properly cleaned, AND it can no longer drain. You better hope those antibiotics work, because the good Doc has just taken away all but one of your treatment options.

And last but not least - your quip about a sterile environment shows just how clueless you are. Any good quality piercer will have sterility routines that put your average family practice doctor to shame. EVERYTHING is autoclaved, needles are disposed of in proper medical sharps containers, studios are kept immaculately clean and gloves are changed CONSTANTLY during a procedure.

My piercier practices better hygiene than my oral surgeon.

Re:Wait

[azav]

Actually, yes. That's what the article says. Being able to detect phone lines, magnetized speakers, etc...

I think this is actually similar to the active detection of electrical fields that many fish can do. Sharks have these "Ampules of Lorenzini" that they use to zero in on their pre from a distance by detecting the electrical signature of muscle contractions in a prey animal.

Re:Cyberdyne Restaurant

[spun]

Not me, I just had a movement this morning.

Seriously, though, most Slashdotters are probably too young to know Alice's Restaurant

Hoax?

[Handyman]

Dutch blog "Retecool" tried it out and calls it a hoax. Translation of highlights:

I still need to install a ceiling lamp in the bedroom. There's no current flowing there now. The electricity company therefore doesn't charge me anything for the power being hooked up there. If there's no current, no magnet will vibrate, because it is the current (in Amperes) that causes the magnetic fields. But the electricity company does deliver me the required power for the lamp. Therefore, the connection has countless electrons waiting charged with anticipation before I poke a screwdriver into the hole. Without telling my magnet that they are so charged with anticipation, they wait for the moment that they can jump onto my well-conducting finger, to run to earth through my body. Free at last!

One slight drawback remains to be mentioned. My iBook has a magnetic detector on the right of the keyboard which detects when the screen is closed. I now have to press "Enter" with my left hand, because approaching the magnet with my right hand puts my iBook to sleep. So while my bionic magnetic finger doesn't detect anything, my iBook does detect it.

Re:Goodbye Finger

[networkBoy]

That would be an emergency quench and with most MRIs I'm familiar with runs a 10-20% chance of the magnet tearing its self apart as the field collapses.
-nB

Re:Interesting uses...

[zsau]

Regarding giving deaf people the ability to ear again, there's a much better approach: The bionic ear. Basically, you have a speaker which is attached to a device inserted partway into the cochlea and stimulates the nerves inside the cochlea directly. Obviously it only works if (a) the cochlea is at least partially functional and (b) the connection between the ear and the brain, and the temporal lobe of the brain are both functional. Also, for it to be useful, the patient generally will need to have lost their hearing sometime during their life, or be under about two years of age before the implant; people who've not had a sense at all generally find gaining it very disconcerting, hard or impossible to use, and potentially dangerous.

Amongst the advantages this has over your proposal is that it directly interfaces with the hearing apparatus, so your brain interprets the sounds as sounds rather than feelings (the parts responsible for dealing with feelings wouldn't have any idea what to do with sound), and it means you can hear all sounds, not just sounds from speakers. OTOH, your proposal might be useful to give people a feeling as to the level of background noise which might help them when crossing the road or something (if combined also with a speaker).

(BTW: If you need to understand how the first paragraph works. Recall that the ear is composed of three portions, the outer ear (everything to the eardrum); the middle ear (the ossicles or tiny little bones); and the inner ear, which is basically the cochlea. The outer ear channels sound and alters the sound waves to some extent to help our directional hearing. In the middle ear, the ossicles convert ear-based sound waves to liquid-based sound waves (the cochlea is filled with fluid); it also dampens some sounds, probably the ones caused by you chewing and talking so you don't damage your hearing/get distracted. The inner ear converts these sound waves to nerve impulses; along the length of the cochlea are thousands of nerves that respond to gradually lower frequencies. From here the sounds are sent (indirectly) to the primary auditory cortex of the temporal lobe of the brain to be processed. Standard hearing aids require that everything's working, just to a lower grade than normal: They merely amplify sounds. Bionic ears bypass the inner and middle ears and interface with the cochlea. But they don't give their recipients anywhere like normal hearing; the cochlea is wound up on itself like a snail and so you can only go so far in, and even still its somewhat limited in its resolution.