Journalist Has Her Sixth Sense Removed

Ronald Bailey | May 21, 2007

No, not her ability to see the dead. Last year, reporter Quinn Norton had a magnet installed in the tip of one of her fingers. This allowed her to sense magnetic fields in appliances, computers, store security systems and the like. Norton writes :

I miss my magnet, but I knew it wasn't well understood when I started. I'm glad I know what a spinning drive and a ringing telephone wire feel like. I'm sad I can't feel them anymore.

This experiment is just the beginning of research to see far can the human body be modified to include and understand new sorts of sensory inputs. By the way, if I had to choose between being enhanced to see either ultraviolet or infrared, I'd pick infrared.