Jeremy Eades @ 23-02-2008
While Paul’s the normal go-to guy for body hacks, I thought I’d share one I came across. In my book it’s not quite as cool as having a touch screen implanted, but some of you may like this more. It’s also a good lesson on how our bodies don’t always appreciate having odd things stuffed into them.
A Canadian tattoo artist had a cowgirl inked on his calf, and last year decided she needed to look a little more 3D, so he got a surgeon friend to implant two small silicon implants into her breasts. Unfortunately, they were rejected and he took it upon himself to perform a bit of self-surgery, which went about as well as you would expect. The artist says about 20% of people reject implants, but he doesn’t mention the upside, which is that up to 80% of the population could be wandering around with 3D dragon tattoos with horn implants. Just try putting a shirt on properly with one of those.
How many of you would get implants to *ahem* augment your cowgirl?
(via Scienceblog Aetiology) (image from canoe.ca)
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Paul Raven @ 22-02-2008
Yet more potential transhumanist body-modification! File under “you must all send me money until I can afford one of these”:
The strapline for the image on the Physorg report reads: “Waterproof and powered by pizza”. 
[Via Chris Roberson and many others]
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Paul Raven @ 11-02-2008
First the good news - there may be a more efficient way to receive vaccinations than traditional injections.
But before those of you with a phobia get too excited by the prospect, the alternative still involves needles - the needles of tattoo machines, in fact.
“… administering pieces of DNA from the human papillomavirus virus into the skin of mice by three tattoo-gun injections produced a 200-fold greater production of antibodies to the virus than was achieved with the old method of a needle injection into a muscle.
Vaccines made with bits of DNA are not new, but the usual ways of delivering them have not worked very well. The reason that tattoo injections are so much more effective is thought to be because the repeated puncturing of the skin by the rotating tattoo needle does real damage to the skin — the presence of a bona fide wound causes inflammatory cells to flood into the site, where they speed and enhance the immune response to the vaccine.”
So probably more painful than traditional hypodermic injections, but cheaper and more effective - two factors that matter a lot in the world of health-care. [via grinding.be] [image by Frenkieb]
We can assume that someone will come up with a less painful way to achieve the same results, too. How about some sort of sticky patch that uses an enzyme to create a skin wound, then delivers the vaccine and starts the healing process, all in one?
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Paul Raven @ 19-11-2007
A lot of people don’t really give proper consideration to the fact that tattoos are, pretty much by definition, forever. For those people, good news arrives in the form of a new type of tattoo ink that is more easily removed by laser treatment; the ink itself is water soluble, and is encased in tiny balls of polymer which can be dissolved by a single laser treatment rather than seven or eight.
Now, perhaps I’m biased from being a tattoo collector and body-mod enthusiast, but this strikes me a product filling what should be a non-existent niche. As any responsible tattooist worth their needles should tell any prospective customer, if you’re going to take long enough to think about using a special ink in case you decide to get the tattoo removed in a few years time, you probably shouldn’t be bothering to get the tattoo at all. [Image by ElvertBarnes]
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Paul Raven @ 22-10-2007
While we’re still a way off from being able to meaningfully extend the functional capabilities of the human body through elective surgery (at least affordably), there’s still plenty of more cosmetic tweaks available. But the lines between personal decoration and function can be blurred, especially when art comes in to play - like this "haptic tattoo" concept from the digital media art department of Berlin University, which could theoretically allow people with restricted or low-function vision to parse information about a person by touch. Granted, it’s not a use that I can envisage a huge demand for, but the concept is interesting - and as a body-modder of sorts, it’s refreshing for me to see things like sub-dermal implants being taken seriously by academia, as opposed to being castigated as a form of primitivism. [Via Technovelgy]
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While Paul’s the normal go-to guy for body hacks, I thought I’d share one I came across. In my book it’s not quite as cool as having a touch screen implanted, but some of you may like this more. It’s also a good lesson on how our bodies don’t always appreciate having odd things stuffed into them.
