If there was ever a storyline I expected to see in Transmetropolitan, this is it! I’m guessing many of you have seen the USA Today special on the illegal selling of human body parts. You take your dead gramps to be cream-mated, and you get ashes alright, but they aren’t his. Instead, the crematorium or their employees have carved up his body and has cleared many thousands for selling all of his parts (hands, head, shoulder, eyes, legs, etc.) and organs (liver, brain, heart, lungs, etc.). Lest you think a regular burial prevents this outcome, you better check gramps’ insides before you lower the coffin - his brain may already be on its way to your favorite research facility by then!

Trafficking in body parts illegally harvested from the dead is a lucrative, underground business driven by growing demand for human bones and tissue, a USA TODAY investigation has found…Funeral home employees, crematorium operators and others with access to the recently deceased have secretly dismembered corpses, taking non-organ body parts such as knees, spines, bone and skin without the knowledge or consent of family members….

…Modern-day body snatchers provide bones, tendons and body parts other than transplantable organs to tissue banks, research facilities and other buyers. What they get paid: $600 for a brain, as much as $850 for an elbow, up to $850 for a hand, according to an analysis of market prices for fresh or frozen body parts used for research and education that was compiled by Annie Cheney, author of Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains.

Demand for tissue is growing. More than 19,000 square feet of skin were distributed in 2003 for transplant from accredited tissue banks, according to the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB), up from 7,700 square feet in 1999. About 3,300 heart valves were distributed in 2003, up from 1,300 in 1999. Tumors and excess tissue that were once incinerated as waste can now be probed for DNA markers to help doctors understand disease.

Sometimes this business is enacted by individuals looking to make a buck, but more disturbing is the trend where the crematorium and other organizations themselves do this as their normal course of business.

If nothing else, this trend points to a further decay in the former “sacredness” of humanity. As we move toward a post-human, cyberpunked world, the perception of “uniqueness” each of us imagines we as individuals have begins to wear off. Moral boundaries are weakened, and behaviors previously thought taboo become commonplace. Welcome to the new world!

Researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition have been experimenting with using a tongue as the “brainport” conduit for connecting cyborg-like implants. Their test subjects are soldiers, with the hope being that they can give soliders an edge in the battlefield.

By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish.

Researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition envision their work giving Army Rangers 360-degree unobstructed vision at night and allowing Navy SEALs to sense sonar in their heads while maintaining normal vision underwater turning sci-fi into reality.

The device, known as “Brain Port,” was pioneered more than 30 years ago by Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a University of Wisconsin neuroscientist. Bach-y-Rita began routing images from a camera through electrodes taped to people’s backs and later discovered the tongue was a superior transmitter.

A narrow strip of red plastic connects the Brain Port to the tongue where 144 microelectrodes transmit information through nerve fibers to the brain. Instead of holding and looking at compasses and bluky-hand-held sonar devices, the divers can processes the information through their tongues, said Dr. Anil Raj, the project’s lead scientist.

Really interesting is the question of how humans treat this extra-perceptual capabilities. Will they eventually think of it as similar to their real senses, or will this be similar to wearing a pair of sun glasses or something? The wierd one to me is the eyesight enhancers:

Work on the infrared-tongue vision for Army Rangers isn’t as far along. But (lead scientist) Raj said the potential usefulness of the night vision technology is tremendous. It would allow soldiers to work in the dark without cumbersome night-vision goggles and to “see out the back of their heads,” he said.

How will soldiers function when they have 360 degree vision capability? At first glance, this seems like it could have some significant usability issues. In a rapid-response threat environment, will the extended vision aid in extending their situational awareness or could it potentially freeze them by incorporating too much input at a moment of high stress?