Medical April Fools

Another April Fools’ Day has come and gone, but not without at least a few medgadget related pranks.
For starters, Engadget reported about artist Art Lebedev’s ingenious finger-adapter for those masochists who love the occasional jolt of 110V.

The Vilcus dactyloadapter (adapter for fingers) was especially developed for people who like closing the electrical circuit with their own fingers.
Many people get a kick out of a direct contact with AC power supply. To that end, people normally use U-shaped fragments of bare wire, paper clips or even usual metal forks. All these gimmicks are unreliable, short-lived and, most important, tend to cause a short circuit or even an inflammation in the wiring.
The idea underlying the well-known limerick There was a small girl indiscreet / Who asked her mom for a sweet. / Mom said, “Aye, it’s here in my pocket!” / “Go stick your lil thumb in a socket!” is essentially ill-conceived. For one thing, one finger is not enough to produce the desired effect. For another, all household sockets are designed so as to preclude any finger abuse, a child or not a child.
Vilcus does not consume power by itself, so it can be left plugged into the power outlet until the next session.

The next victim appears to be the infamous Slashdot who were/weren’t duped into reporting on the first corporate sponsored surgical implants for cell phones.

In November 2002, designers at the Royal College of Art in London made headlines after coming up with the world’s first cell-phone implant. Their design involved a small chip that housed a receiver and a transducer. The receiver could pick up mobile phone signals, and the transducer could translate them into vibrations.
Once implanted in a person’s molar, the transducer caused the tooth to vibrate in response to radio signals. The physical structure of the jaw carried the tooth’s vibrations to the inner ear, where the user, and no one else, could perceive them as sound. The implant’s designers held dramatic demonstrations of this principle using a vibrating wand. Participants confirmed that they could hear crystal clear voices through their teeth.

Read more on this prank . . .