- Cyborgs remind us of characters
that are futuristic and fantasy.
- He's more machine, huh, than man?
- But in reality, we're all basically cyborgs.
From glasses to smart watches,
we wear and carry and attach a lot of things
that supplement or enhance our bodies abilities.
But there's a growing movement of people
who are taking that integration to the next level.
By implanting everything from magnets
to Wi-Fi routers in their bodies.
This isn't the kind of thing that
you can just do at your doctors office.
So they've come up with their own
unofficial and surprising ways to get it done.
We went and visited one of
the most renowned hacker surgeons in the country
who performs these procedures in his garage.
Now surgery in someones garage may sound really cool
or really scary but this is the bleeding edge
of body and tech integration,
and it's becoming more and more mainstream.
(tranquil music)
- Jeff, where the f-ck are the screws?
- They should be sitting on the gray case up there,
to your left on the sensory depth chamber.
- This is Jeffrey Tibbetts, he goes by Cassox online.
By day, he's a registered nurse.
But at home in his garage, he's a hacker surgeon.
This is all Biohacking.
It's a movement of citizen scientists
who are experimenting on their own bodies
outside of the traditional lab space.
It could take the form of tech implants
or self administering untested medicine,
or trying to unlock the code of living forever.
But Jeffrey identifies as a grinder.
Grinding is a subset of the larger Biohacking community
which mostly focuses on body modifications
and tech implants, like computer chips in peoples hands,
LED lights in arms, magnets in fingertips,
and Bluetooth teeth.
Really anything to enhance or change
the bodies functionality.
- There's so much variety in terms of
people in the community.
It's not just people that like have more medical background,
it's not people who have biology background.
You know, it's like, yeah, we have those people.
We also have engineers, we have chemists,
and material engineers.
- We're playing we got a new game, Jeff.
It's called steal the magnet from your friends magnet input.
- Oh shit, it's mine now.
- I describe myself as a cyborg, Biohacker, transhumanist.
My implants, I had 26 before I arrived here today.
And now I have 33, when I do my math right, 33.
I have 33 implants.
- [Chase] Anastasia Synn uses her implants for magic.
- [Announcer] Anastasia Synn!
- [Chase] We met her at Jeffrey's where
she was getting seven implants.
Biohacking exists in a medical and legal gray area.
Which means it's truly an underground movement.
But the community feels like they should have the right
and ability to accept that inherent risk,
and change or modify their bodies how they want.
And that's exactly what they do.
It just ends up in places like Jeffrey's garage.
- They can't go to a hospital to get these implants done,
and they do have to come to my friends garage,
which is probably the coolest garage for making implants,
I think, that you'll ever see in your life.
He's a skilled practitioner in what he's doing,
and he's a good friend of mine.
- That'll get you home.
- If you find yourself having a hard time
taking this seriously, think about this.
We already merge our bodies and technology in a lot of ways.
We've just gotten use to it in certain instances.
Consider the pacemaker.
An early version of the device
revived a stillborn child in the 1920's.
It was a miracle back then.
But it was new and people felt weird
about reviving the dead, so research stopped.
But overtime public perception shifted.
In 1958 the first person was implanted with a pacemaker.
He went on to live another 43 years.
Today, we don't event think twice about having a pacemaker.
It goes to show that our integration with tech
is evolving and always incomplete.
Biohackers as we know them are now
basically playing around in the lab
to see what they can come up with next.
And while magnet implants or Bluetooth teeth
really aren't on the same scale
or as life saving as a pacemaker,
these implants are just a stepping stone
in this ever changing landscape.
And I thought that was pretty cool.
Reporting on this story and watching Jeffrey in his garage
really got me curious to know what it was like
to get one of the implants.
So I decided to jump in the lab with them.
- All right so, this is what I'm talkin' about.
The webbing here is pretty much the most common place
for people to get it, okay.
- So, I did some quick research
and landed on this NFC chip,
which means near field communication.
It means the chip can send and receive information.
It looks like a pretty big needle.
The chip itself is inside of a capsule
and gets injected underneath the skin
through a hollow needle.
The swelling goes down in just a couple days
and you're good to go.
That's crazy.
So I really wasn't sure what I could do
with the chip once I got it.
Chip implants 101 seems like a good place to start.
So I did some research and found
that there's a couple of everyday things
I could do with it like open a front door,
unlock my car, unlock my computer.
But, for me the most useful thing is working with my iPhone.
I can scan it and share my contact info, open a website,
or share a social network.
I even programmed it to FaceTime my mom.
Hey mom.
- How are ya?
- Surprisingly, she wasn't really freaked out by my implant.
- As long that you keep it on
that you can FaceTime your mother, I'm okay with it.
- Does this make me a grinder Biohacker now?
- [Jeffrey] I don't know, how do you feel about it?
- This is just my first one.
- [Jeffery] Okay, let's get some more.
- Jeffrey's work culminates every year with Grindfest,
where dozens of Biohackers from all over
come to Jeffrey's home and test out the latest
technology and try out some new implants.
- You know, it's the most incredible thing.
More information at our fingertips than ever before
and more people who have no idea how to utilize it
then ever before, that's why we're such a teaching community
people come in and, you know, they think,
oh no, I could just do this and put it in hot glue.
Or I could do this, and it's like no, you can't.
And let us tell you why.
- We just try lots of new things.
New discoveries are made.
Last Grindfest we were doing B12 shots on each other.
Cattle B12 shots, I mean they give it to cows,
it's gotta be okay for people.
I mean, you shouldn't just get drunk
and play Scrabble, or sing karaoke.
You should get drunk and like, you know,
inject yourself with some B12.
It'll probably help you the next day.
- Most people won't be rushing out to do that.
But that's the fundamental idea here.
They're pushing at the edges of our perception
of what we should and shouldn't do with our bodies.
And they're learning a lot in that process.
- We one by one made all of the mistakes on the way.
And so it's like now everything else is easy.
We don't have to keep making mistakes
and we can prey upon on all of the low hanging fruits.
Stuff that's already been done and
researched by people in the medical field.
A lot of this stuff that's really cool
and then just brought to a slightly,
you know, different level, you know,
that's my take, that's about what I got.
So, cool.
- I know, but it was fine.
- [Mom] I'm sure, as long as you don't
have any gangrene on yout hand.
- Okay. (laughs)
I don't, um yeah.
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