Gross: Biohackers Implanting LEDs Under Their Skin

Subcutaneous microchips were once only a thing that evil corporations implanted in oppressed sci-fi heroes, but modern biohackers and body modifiers have taken the idea and created their own version, for better or worse. In a technological climate where the computer-savvy fight against Facebook for tracking their every click, there are also those who willingly implant devices that enable complete, invasive, and unrelenting tracking of their actual bodies. Oh, the irony.

Now, Motherboard reports that the tech-obsessed have begun implanting LEDs under their skin, courtesy of Grindhouse Wetware. It's simple: cut open a perfectly good hand or arm, slip in some robot junk just under the skin, and sew it up. Now you've  got yourself a hand that displays five little lights when you rub it with a magnet. It'll work for a little while at least, because technology has not yet created a battery that will last forever, or LEDs that can supply light indefinitely. One might think that those kinds of things would have been a scientific priority over looking like a bootleg Iron Man when you hit up the club, but the energy crisis isn't sexy.

Grindhouse Wetware's intentions are great. They've developed a small range of sensors that enable the user to collect data both from their own bodies and the world they live in, but raw data is boring stuff compared to having lights shine from inside of your body. Whether Grindhouse Wetware is just trying to generate buzz about medical data implants, or they just want to freak people out, they've successfully done both.

Three days after Jowan Österlund, a sweaty guy in a Yankees cap, implanted these LED stars into a few patients, including Grindhouse Wetware COE JR Worst, swelling and bruising has finally started to go down, revealing the full power of the extraneous device in its wearers. Finally, science has realized that you can put stuff inside a human body.

Wait, it already knew that? People have had artificial parts for decades? Godspeed to these human Glo Worms.

[Source: Motherboard]