Emerging trends in corporal art

Abstract

In recent years society has changed immensely, reshaping the traditional view of family and the human body. The process of conception, pregnancy and child-caring is no longer happening in the biological way and marriage is settled based on genetic pairing and economic factors rather than regular relationships between the two sexes. As a result, the perception of the human body changed dramatically and several high-technological body modifications were developed to meet the new market demands.

Background

The advance in medicine offered immense opportunities to humankind. With the sequencing of the human genome and increased understanding of the gene function, it was possible to eradicate most of the inherited genetic diseases, including predispositions to cancer, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, obesity etc. More and more families took advantage of the genetic pairing services – consultation services, including 1) identification of major genetic-associated health risks; 2) calculation of the probability for certain phenotypic features of the children.

Simultaneously the share of in vitro concepted children raised dramatically to over 60% of all childbirths in 2120. It was evident that due to multiple reasons, including 1) the need or preference for career development over family; 2) chronic disorders; 3) an unhealthy way of life; the ability of humans to reproduce unassisted decreased significantly, posing a risk to the future of the species.

To overcome this medical companies developed the procedure of ACB – Artificial Child Birth. Briefly, this service offers 1) preservation of gametes; 2) In vitro fertilization on demand; and 3) embryo development in an artificial womb; meaning that a family couple could make the decisions on the number, gender and time of birth of its children. The ACB became increasingly popular and affordable, emerging as the manner of choice for more than 80% of the population in high-income countries and no less than 20% in low-income countries.

Because of ACB, the role of the woman as a mother was reconsidered and sex was no longer a factor in reproduction. The social impact was more or less a change in the role of the family. Family couples are no longer formed based on human-to-human relationships and marriage became a sort of legal agreement, based on optimal gene pairing and economic decisions. Sadly, more and more women are undergoing ovary and uterus removal procedures immediately after egg preservation and when reaching lawful age.

Simultaneously the biotechnological companies developed and started to offer a variety of new procedures for body modifications, for both men and women, summarized under the term “corporal art”. The current paper describes several of the newly emerging corporal art trends, along with associated medical issues.

Hormonal control implants

One of the major drawbacks of ovary removal surgery is the alteration of hormonal status. As ovaries are important endocrine glands, their removal leads to serious complications in hormonal control. To overcome this, as well as many hormonal disorders, especially during the climacteric, hormonal control implants were developed and introduced. They represent subdermal microchip implants, associated with the population of glandular cells, subdivided into subpopulations for steroid hormone and peptide/amino acid-derived hormone synthesis.

The implant carries out real-time monitoring of the blood levels of between ten and thirty hormones depending on the models, simultaneously accumulating the hormones, synthesized by the associated subpopulations of glandular cells. In case of any misregulation of the ordinary hormonal secretion, the implant either releases the needed hormone in the bloodstream or selectively absorbs the hormone in excess, thus decreasing its level in the body.

Although it looks like a risky technology, the hormonal control implants function surprisingly well and reported medical cases, associated with equipment failure are less than 100 per year.

Molecular tattoo

Tattoos became extremely popular at the beginning of the 21st century and many people reached extremes, including covering the entire body with tattoos or scleral tattooing. The recent trend, however, is to develop disappearing or changing tattoos by injecting molecular inks. The term “molecular ink” previously referred to substances, used for 3D printing of tissues and organs, but it is also used for a variety of protein and non-protein compounds, sensitive to different chemical or physical stimuli and used in tattooing.

The concept is pretty simple – nanobots are engineered to have colour and receptors for the respective agent. When subdermally injected as a tattoo, they can be either coloured or not, depending on whether the receptor is activated or not. Accordingly, the tattoo or certain parts could disappear or re-appear. Currently, the most popular molecular inks are 1) UV sensitive; 2) melatonin-sensitive, and 3) adrenalin-sensitive, and the triggers for changes in the tattoo are exposure to the sun, the diurnal rhythm and the excited state, respectively. Some popular examples are tattoos, which appear only upon sun exposure on the beach, a blooming rose, which is in the form of bud during the night and a fully opened flower during the day and moon, passing through several phases.

Complications of molecular tattooing are mostly associated with immune response and gradual loss of sensitivity of the receptors.

Smart breast implants

Breast augmentation and correction is a standard in beauty procedures for decades, but are also associated with health issues like back pain and discomfort during sports activity or business meetings. Smart inflatable breast implants were developed to meet these disadvantages. They function by absorbing air through microscopic pores in response to certain stimuli – most often massaging or hormonal signals, related to sexual arousal and deflate gradually when the trigger is ceased.

Genetically modified sweat glands

The first efforts, directed toward genetic alteration of the function of sweat glands allowed a substantial decrease in the amount of urea and lactic acid in the sweat, thus diminishing the characteristic odour. This technology relies mainly on the introduction of channels for the reabsorption of these compounds in the sweat ducts.

The next step, however, is the transplantation of transgenetic cell populations, modified to possess entire metabolic pathways for aromatic compounds of plant origin. Briefly, stem cells from the person are genetically modified with the pathways for synthesis of certain isoprenoids, responsible for the scent of a rose or lavender oil and often used in perfumery.

The respective genes of the metabolic pathways are usually cloned under the control of a weak constitutive promotor and adrenaline-responsive elements to increase expression under stress and physical activity. The combination of different genes under differential control allows the development of different combinations of volatiles, thus different scents.

One Reply to “Emerging trends in corporal art”

  1. Mark says:

    Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *