Grindhouse Wetware
= a group of open-source biohackers in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
URL = http://www.grindhousewetware.com/
Biohacking is the process of augmenting the human body to do new things, whether with technology or biology.
Discussion
By Ben Popper:
"The two-story house sits next to a beer dispensary and an abandoned motel, a reminder the city’s best days are far behind it. In the last two decades, Pittsburgh has been gutted of its population, which plummeted from a high of more than 700,000 in the 1980s to less than 350,000 today. For its future, the city has pinned much of its hopes on the biomedical and robotics research being done at local universities like Carnegie Mellon. "The city was dying and so you have this element of anti-authority freaks are welcome," said Cannon. "When you have technology and biomedical research and a pissed-off angry population that loves tattoos, this is bound to happen. Why Pittsburgh? It’s got the right amount of fuck you."
Cannon led me down into the basement, which he and Sarver have converted into a laboratory. A long work space was covered with Arduino motherboards, soldering irons, and electrodes. Cannon had recently captured a garter snake, which eyed us from inside a plastic jar. "Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been telling people that I want to be a robot," said Cannon. "These days, that doesn't seem so impossible anymore." The pair call themselves grinders — homebrew biohackers obsessed with the idea of human enhancement — who are looking for new ways to put machines into their bodies. They are joined by hundreds of aspiring biohackers who populate the movement’s online forums and a growing number, now several dozen, who have gotten the magnetic implants in real life." (http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3177438/cyborg-america-biohackers-grinders-body-hackers)