Author(s): Harry Parker

Science

Our ever-increasing intimacy with technology is changing our bodies and our brains. What can those at the frontiers tell us about what it means to be in a body now? From the critically-acclaimed author of Anatomy of a Soldier Harry Parker's life changed overnight, when he lost his legs to an IED in Afghanistan. Here he takes us on a journey through the exhilarating landscape of a very human kind of hacking, meeting those pushing the limits of our bodies and brains - and grappling with his own new identity and disability along the way. What happens when our lives become enmeshed with technology? Most of us are 'coupled' 24/7 to our mobile phones, reliant on glasses, or pacemakers - but we are living in an era of dizzying new possibilities. Parker meets the soldiers having cutting-edge osseointegration, the first DIY cyborgs and biohackers tinkering in garages, and the scientists and surgeons pioneering the latest robotics and implants. He traces how they might lead us to powerful, liberating new possibilities for what a body can be - and how to be human is to be hybrid.