SMALL PRINT:BODY MODIFICATION has always pushed the boundaries of taste, but even the most open-minded might flinch at the latest trend in Japan. If you find tongue piercing or skull tattoos extreme, look away now.
"Bagelheads" spend two hours injecting saline into their foreheads causing massive – although apparently harmless – swelling, which is then moulded into a bagel shape.
The bagelhead lasts just for a night and man responsible for popularising the trend, photographer and journalist Ryoichi "Keroppy" Maeda, says there have been few side effects and no known cases of the forehead skin remaining stretched. He also says some people are injecting saline into other body areas.
The trend is flaunted at body modification and fetish parties.
Japan has a seemingly endless array of youth subcultures, some that go global, like the Harajuku Girls and Hello Kitty, but body modification was taboo well into the 1990s, with tattoos seen as the preserve of criminal Yakuza gangs.
However, Maeda says the internet has exposed Japanese youths to a world of information and influence. While some of Japan's more "interesting" subcultures exert influence elsewhere, many stay firmly inside the country, which is hopefully where the bagelheads will remain.
Electricity at your fingertips
IF YOU’RE sick of tripping over computer wires or endlessly searching for your Mac charger, then help might be on the way. Researchers in Australia have figured out a way to use the energy created by typing to power a laptop.
For some time, advances in wireless electricity and charging pads have been billed as alternatives to plugging laptops in to power outlets to charge them, but this latest development could offer another option.
Scientists at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology are studying the capacity a thin piezoelectric film could have for turning the mechanical pressure we create while typing into electricity.
Piezoelectricity isn’t a new advancement, it was discovered in the 19th century and today it’s used in common objects such electric cigarette lighters. But until now, piezoelectric crystals have been used, not the thin films that the Australian researchers are proposing could charge laptops.
The idea would be to use nanotechnology to coat a keyboard in a piezoelectric film, which would then convert pressure on the keys into electricity. The possibility of a film being placed over touch screen devices and using the energy created by swipe motions to create electricity is also being explored.
The technology may also be used to create supposed “everlasting” batteries in other areas, such as to power pacemakers.
The study has been published in the latest edition of Advanced Functional Materials. For now, I think we'd just settle with the convenience of not having to use a charger.
