On-Body Circuits Create New Sense Organ

destinyland writes "In 'My New Sense Organ,' a science writer tests 'a new sense' — the ability to always know true north — by strapping a circuit board to her ankle. It's connected to an electronic compass and an ankle band with eight skin buzzers. The result? 'I had wrong assumptions I didn't know about ... I returned home to Washington DC to find that, far worse than my old haunt San Francisco, my mental map of DC swapped north for west. I started getting more lost than ever as the two spatial concepts of DC did battle in my head.' The device also detects 'the specific places where infrastructure interferes with the earth's magnetic fields.'

Comments

What qualifies for new sensory organ?

[Bicx]

Is this really a new sensory organ if it just relies on buzzers rather than direct neural connections? Maybe I've just been spoiled by all the awesome research done in computer-brain interfaces.

Re:What qualifies for new sensory organ?

[pla]

it also takes place, or adds "noise", to at least a region of our actual existing senses, information that could have been useful or needed and now become blurred by this artificial input.

While true, we don't really "need" the vast majority of our sense of touch - Aside from letting us know about injuries (which I would expect to far outweigh the input of a small buzzer), any given point on our legs, torso, arms, or even most of our heads, really doesn't matter much so far as sensing environmental input goes. We generally can't even count on those to give meaningful input, because we wear clothes over them (and thus, automatically block out what little they do tell us) .

Incidentally, I recall reading about a similar experiment about a decade ago, by a group of body-modification fans, where a few people implanted tiny rare-earth magnets in their fingers. While the magnets lasted, they described it as very much having a new sense. They could locate magnetic north, detect the presence and frequency of electric and magnetic fields, identify most metals (including non-ferromagnetic) just by touch, etc. Made me quite jealous, except the part where their bodies eventually broke the magnets down (with some rather ugly, though localized, surface effects).

But this... Perhaps not quite as "cool", but also not quite as irreversable if something goes wrong. Time to hit the workshop...

Re:What qualifies for new sensory organ?

[4D6963]

That's a new sense nested inside an already existing sense. Like an HUD in your eye that would show you an infrared overlay would be like a new sense inside your sense of vision.

Re:Mental maps...

[fahrbot-bot]

...buy one of those $5 compass globes and stick it in the car...

Or Forehead.

Re:Mental maps...

[Max Threshold]

"Men, on the other hand, rarely use anything but a map. If I changed a street sign outside my apartment, my male friends probably wouldn't be able to find the place anymore."

Maybe I'm an exception, but I don't think that's true at all. I navigate entirely by landmarks. I don't even know the names of half the streets I travel on regularly. Furthermore, my mental map of the city is framed by our light rail system, major bus lines, and bike throughfares, not by the major roads carrying automobile traffic.

Re:True North???

[JWyner]

The only person to ever mention "true" north is the Slashdot poster. TFA never describes true north, and actually specifically states that they are using magnetic north. I am not entirely sure *why* they went out of their way to add the "true" and make the description *untrue*, but thought it worth giving credit to the actual science writer for understanding the difference...

Re:Mental maps...

[Evildonald]

How to write an "Insightful" comment

1) Find a quote from the article, and claim you've always known it, and what is more everybody already knows it.
2) Make AWESOME generalisations about "how, like, men and women are different, yeah?"

Really insightful. Can we remove the current judges and get new ones?

Re:Shouldn't it be magnetic North?

[jbeaupre]

No, but the user might know how to correct for it.

Step 1: look up magnetic declination for your location (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/IGRF_2000_magnetic_declination.gif

Step 2: rotate the ankle bracelet to compensate.

Or stand where you know you are facing true north, then rotate anklet until it indicates true north.

Re:This is the future...

[lattyware]

Seems like a bad idea on the basis they will eventually corrode inside you, and if you ever need an MRI you'll need to have them out before you can have it.

Re:Mental maps...

[Locke2005]

Not that I'm surprised -- women will navigate first by landmarks and familiarity, and if that fails they fall back on maps. Men, on the other hand, rarely use anything but a map.

[Citation needed]

Like most men, I suck at giving directions because I can't remember the actual names of most of the streets used. Just like women, men navigate by running a sequence of events in a specific order, navigating by waypoints (landmarks) rather than absolute position. I suck at estimating the distance between landmarks, too, to the point where sometimes I get discouraged and turn around before I reach one, thinking I've already gone past it. And... (checking below belt buckle...) I'm definitely male.

Re:Mental maps...

[Hognoxious]

I object to this inaccurate stereotype. Where's the stop at the chip shop for a deep-fried Mars bar?

Lost in DC?

[lucas_picador]

How could anyone lose track of cardinal directions in DC, even for a moment? It's built on a NS/EW grid, with the streets named on a number/letter system. It's got a giant phallic symbol sticking up in the exact middle (which is at 16th street NW, okay, but that still shouldn't affect one's sense of north vs. west).

The only place I can imagine where it would be harder to mistake west for north would be Manhattan, with its street (EW) vs. avenue (NS) distinction being impossible to miss.

Re:I found that by simply moving the buzzers...

[nametaken]

I'll tell you what's amazing is that what you just wrote, and the fact that we get it, demonstrates just how deeply we've all internalized OLD ass cartoon characters as outward communicators of our inner dumbass.