Man to connect ear growing on arm to wi-fi
Perth performance artist Stelarc always has something up his sleeve to show off at a party, an ear growing on his left arm.
The biological oddity is the centrepiece of a long-running project at Perth's Curtin University where Stelarc is a professor.
He first came up with the idea of growing an ear on his arm 20 years ago but it took years to find a team of surgeons willing to help.
Nine years ago surgeons inserted a synthetic frame of an ear under the skin of Stelarc's forearm. In the years after the surgery, Stelarc's body has adapted to the synthetic frame, until it became an organ with its own blood supply.
Now Stelarc wants to step the project up a notch.
"When we grow an ear lobe using my adult stem cells we're then going to electronically augment the ear to internet-enable it in any wi-fi hotspot," he told Channel Nine's Today Show on Wednesday.
"So if I'm in Perth and someone else is in London, New York, wherever I am, wherever they are, they'll be able to listen in to what my ear is hearing," he said.
Stelarc said reactions of bewilderment at his experiment were very common.
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