Published
3 years agoon
By
Joe Pee
Yes, it’s real! In 1966, a man named Stelarc wanted to grow an extra ear for a very absurd reason…
His intentions were to create a third ear in his arm, as a listening device for people in other places. They’d be able to follow his conversations, hear the sounds of a concert, or the hustle-bustle of a city. Wherever Stelarc was, you were with him.
Years later, his dream became a reality! A team of surgeons only recently, implanted a prosthetic ear-shaped scaffold, inside his arm. Within six months, tissue and blood vessels had developed around the structure.
From there, a mini microphone was added which unfortunately, created an infection. Stelarc now intends to replace this feature with a new wireless unit, that will transmit audio to the internet and be trackable by GPS.
He says, “there won’t be an on-off switch. If I’m not in a Wi-Fi hotspot or I switch off my home modem, then perhaps I’ll be offline, but the idea actually is to try to keep the ear online all the time.”