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

Places you couldn't go

[Optikschmoptik]

We operate a 10-Tesla magnet in our lab. When it's on, all nearby metal needs to be secured and people with pacemakers shouldn't be anywhere near us. I suppose this wouldn't be quite as serious, but a field like that would likely rip your implants right out, or cause you to lose control of your fingers. It's not an 'everyday environment', but I would expect physics labs to be a little more common in the lives of the kind of people who would consider getting magnets implanted in their fingers.

Oh, and no MRIs either.

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

[jwiegley]

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.