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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.'"
I become slightly phobic of magnetic resonance imaging machines. The superpowerful electromagnets used in medical imaging can make metal fly across a room and stick, often for the hours it takes to power down the magnets. A person with an embedded magnet runs the risk of having their implant ripped out of their body.
So, I would imagine, um, that sort of thing, basically.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Sounds bad for your health then, having to avoid MRIs as much as possible. People will do some strange things to differentiate themselves from everyone else.
Oh, and no MRIs either.
from the kind-of-a-crappy-superpower dept
And how many superpowers do you have Zonk? If it could be made safer (I'm a science teacher and have a few magnets in the lab that could rip this out of my finger) I'd get one in a second.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
If an MRI is _needed_ they will pbly do what they do to the people with the old steel plates and pins, just take them out and put them back in after the MRI.
Interesting ideas.. though the one about being deaf - I'd expect there are a few dozen better ideas specifically geared towards that that I would rather try first. I am pretty sure that sensing speaker magnet vibration in your hand wouldn't help you hear anymore than sensing sound vibration by your hand already does for anyone, deaf or not. Some things still have to be routed through the right areas of the brain for it to give you the same sense.
In almost any case I can think of I do not see any point to trying an fully implanted version first anyway. Most things can be tried with devices outside of the body, or lt east with most of the device outside the body. I'm not against the idea of implants, but only when there is a definite advantage over working external versions, or the technology becomes so well developed and its effects integrated into society where you really do need it with you 24/7. People could get FM radios implanted near their ears and say they can "sense" FM radio, but there's no real advantage over using headphones and almost certainly some disadvantages.
Science would be pretty fucking boring if we only ever did experiments where we knew the outcome.
You would probably sense it and pull your hand away as from a hot stove before anything happens.
really annoying.
A bit OT, but I'm 19 and I own the record. So it pays not to judge.
I just had to reply to this thread after reading the bmezine article.
Here's the summary of my opinion: "Children do not try this at home. Hell, don't even try this at your good friends home like the original idiot did."
Frankly, this guy is an idiot. The first thing that came to my mind when seeing his fingertip was: Blood infection. Bright red, vascular looking, painful... blood infection. This is NOT something you should take to your "body-mod" friend to be "fixed". This is flat out an emergency room visit. I'm not a medical doctor but if this is a blood infection it has the ability to travel quickly, infect organs and cause death in a surprisingly rapid fashion.
This is something that needs professional medical equipment to make sure the damage is repaired properly. He's "guessing" they migrated together... He needs an X-ray, not a guess. He needs this for several reasons. To pinpoint where the damage and pieces are so they can be removed with minimal invasion instead of poking around until you've found it all. He also needs follow-up X-rays to confirm that all pieces were found and removed.
I certainly would not go to my body-mod (oh hell, let's just call a spade a spade... body-hack) for the repair. For best results I would be looking for this to be done by a vascular surgeon or neurologist so that I have the best chance of not loosing any senesitivity in my finger and preventing any vascular damage that could result in necrosis.
He needs this to be done in a sterile environment not on somebody's desk. He risks an equal or worse post-hack infection (that would sort of be like a post-surgical secondary infection but this was NOT surgery; this was an adult being stupid.)
I hope most slashdotters don't think this is cool, cause it's not.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.