Forma Edizioni

a cura di Laura Andreini

Italian edition

a cura di Laura Andreini

English edition

Bioluminescence in the Aequorea victoria jellyfish has allowed scientists to make advances using transgenesis, the transfer of a gene from a cell of one species to a cell of another. Mice that have received the gene responsible for bioluminescence in the Aequorea victoria jellyfish glow when exposed to UV rays. Researchers use this property as a marker allowing them to analyze the growth of tissues, organs, tumors, etc.

A bar, a (full) meal. These “total” foods are not dietary supplements but food substitutes.

The boundary between repairing a damaged or dysfunctional body— here, Gafsou’s father’s knee prosthesis, which is strictly therapeutic—and enhancing a healthy body may seem obvious, but it is very hard to define. When does a prosthesis leave the medical realm in the traditional sense of healing and become a means to enhance an individual? To answer that question, it is necessary to try to understand or define what health is. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition is clear: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The wording, which has not changed since 1946, implies that health has a shifting, fluctuating, subjective character. This definition makes it easier to understand why many transhumanists consider their healthy bodies an incomplete vehicle that must be “fixed” and “fulfilled.”

Electronic tattoo

Geneva, Biotech campus, March 22, 2017. In the framework of Project reWalk, headed by Professor Grégoire Courtine of EPFL, electrodes have been implanted into this rat’s injured spinal cord. The goal is for the rat to partially learn to walk again through electrical neurostimulation, accompanied by physical therapy and the use of stimulating drugs. If the spinal cord is not restored to its original condition, stimulation and physical therapy will allow a partial reconstruction of the tissues. This experiment paves the way for treating people with incapacitating spinal cord injuries.

Transhumanists often say that even apparently healthy bodies are sick and imperfect and that technology, like chemical prosthetics or dietary supplements, are a means to achieve physical perfection. “Nootropics (from noos, “mind,” and tropos, “bend”), also known as smart drugs and cognitive enhancers, are drugs, supplements, and other substances that improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals. Generally recognized as safe at low doses, nootropics are promoted in transhumanism as a means to improve living conditions or achieve specific goals, such as increasing motivation.”

Le neuroscienze cognitive studiano i meccanismi neurobiologici (memoria, percezione, abilità motorie, linguaggio, ragionamento, emozioni) legati alla conoscenza. Sulla scia della filosofia e della psicologia, stiamo ora cercando, attraverso esperimenti che misurano con precisione l’attività cerebrale durante le attività motorie o intellettive, di comprendere il funzionamento del cervello. Le applicazioni sono numerose: miglioramento della comunicazione diretta uomomacchina; uso di neuroprotesi (controllate dal pensiero) o miglioramento delle capacità di apprendimento, in particolare attraverso l’uso della realtà virtuale. Una delle maggiori sfide in questo campo sta nella comprensione dell’autocoscienza, spiegando il famoso Cogito, ergo sum.

This exoskeleton can be used for therapeutic purposes or to augment the wearer’s motor skills. Many companies sell such products, in general as support for a strenuous activity or to treat physical handicaps. But DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is working on the most spectacular exoskeleton prototype, capable of turning a soldier into a nearly inexhaustible war machine.

Considered one of the earliest modern prosthetists, Swiss physician Jean-André Venel (1740–1791) developed a corset for people with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. The idea was to treat a malformation or disability. Technically, the corset is an orthotic device, which compensates for an absent or deficient function, as opposed to a prosthesis, which replaces a function. Orthotics are the forerunners of the exoskeleton, the development of which is accelerating for civilian and military uses.

The boundary between repairing a damaged or dysfunctional body— here, Gafsou’s father’s knee prosthesis, which is strictly therapeutic—and enhancing a healthy body may seem obvious, but it is very hard to define. When does a prosthesis leave the medical realm in the traditional sense of healing and become a means to enhance an individual? To answer that question, it is necessary to try to understand or define what health is. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition is clear: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The wording, which has not changed since 1946, implies that health has a shifting, fluctuating, subjective character. This definition makes it easier to understand why many transhumanists consider their healthy bodies an incomplete vehicle that must be “fixed” and “fulfilled.”

The quantified self movement advocates measuring physiological data in order to be healthier. It is part of the trend towards predictive medicine and increasing life expectancy. Quantified self uses tools connected to applications. They are usually external, but many companies are working on integrating them inside the body. For example, heart rate, activity during sleep, the blood oxygen rate, or physical activity can be measured. Quantified self allows individuals to create their own connected space and, in a way, become a medium, in other words an information system.

Self-portrait of the artist as a cyborg.

This anti-aging light therapy mask supposedly makes whoever wears it every day for five minutes look younger. The sales pitch borrows from medical discourse, even though it is a beauty product like anti-aging cream. What makes the device symptomatic is its participation in the already dominant ideology of the perfect body while adding the cult of technology as a way to save it from decrepitude. It is a geeky, cheap, non-invasive version of plastic surgery.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Classic orthodontic treatment using braces to align the patient’s teeth. Originally therapeutic, it aimed to prevent jaw or dentition problems. Today it is also used for aesthetic purposes, establishing perfect teeth as a new norm of smile. The shift from correcting a physiological anomaly to improving appearance participates in manufacturing a relationship to the body as a malleable, correctible object. Implicitly, the body can be incomplete.

Born in 1918, centenarian Jeanne-Marie Dudan enjoys drinking strong espresso, the only nootropic substance, along with tea, she has ever consumed.

The dietary supplement Elysium contains nicotinamide riboside, which has been shown to have positive effects on cell regeneration in mice. Although the findings of a 2016 study on humans look promising, the company’s methods are controversial. Six Nobel Laureates are among its scientific advisers, but the power of this kind of supplement seems limited: aging is a multifactor process and acting on one factor alone cannot slow it down.

Contact lenses, like eyeglasses, are such common augmentations of the human body that we no longer pay attention to them.