Couple days ago I saw a video posted of Derek Jacobys TEDxVictoria talk on Hackerspaces and Biology, at first glance I was really happy to see the two terms in the same sentence. Hackerspaces, HackerHouses, or the more media-friendly, MakerSpaces, have been popping up exponentially everywhere in the last 10 years.  It’s a fantastic movement in bringing like-minded individuals of all sorts of walks of life, professions, trade and hobby together to talk shop, network, and divulge into interests, experiments or take part in large scale projects.  Mixing know how, resource and project management they are hyper-generators...incubators even of ideas and sometimes...game changers.

Like when you are able to put the words Biology and Hackerspaces in the same sentence.

Biohacking.

This is where the real magic starts happening. Man/Woman will always be curious. It’s how we create. It’s how we thrive.  It’s how we evolve.  With technology decreasing in not only price, but also in scale, we begin to be able to brush the threshold of the very building blocks that make you and me what we are. I previously had no idea that by the end of 2012 it will only cost $1,000 to sequence an entire human genome. 300gb of DNA code.  Less than $3.50 per gigabyte of your human DNA decoded. The kicker is that price is down from $10,000,000 in 2005.

There are however the caveats, the ethical boundaries.  Where would they lay?  Designer babies are already possible. We can take cells and replicate them to create entire organs using organ scafolding structures.   But these are the questions people will be asking very soon.  And all and all, it’s exciting that we get to see these human innovations of direction and stride.  We just need to make sure all our hands are on the reigns, not necessarily to hold back...but to hold on tight.

By means of a mix of technology, neuroscience, physics, psychology, and a vast majority of physical science, we attempt to deliver and create quality commentary, reporting and maybe even a little bit of entertainment.

Within the circles of early adapters there are rare and far in-between resources that try and break things down so that people outside of the circle can begin to see and understand what technologies are up ahead.

“Hacking”; in its traditional sense within the culture it derived from, in its essence, is someone who thinks out of the box on any given subject, see what it does (with studying and research) and theorize on the full capabilities of it.  The ‘hacker’ would then work to achieve said capabilities in ways that are either not documented, not thought of, or just very sparsely known about. 

Thousands of years ago Man discovered the first type of ‘Cerebralhack’ they called it Meditation.

Cerebralhack tries to fill a void by educating others with quality information. We attempt to do this comparatively by partnering with leaders in the industry getting their feedback, speaking with and interviewing various scientists, researching up and coming technologies, or testing and commenting on them in a purely informational manor so the readers themselves can make their own decision.

• Founder/Writter Steven Caputo
• Web Developer Jason Murray 
• Writter/Developer Chris Birkinbine
• Writer/Commentator Carrie Dykes

• Past Guest Commentator Ed Rabbit
  
• Past Guest Commentator Violet Blue
  

Every time you look at someone, every time you walk past the bakery and take in the smell of fresh baked bread, every time you hear a car alarm go off, every time you shake a hand your brain is firing signals back and forth billions of times a day from our various senses. And from the time we wake up, to the time we go to sleep…and even when we sleep, our brain sends signals to the body to contract/retract muscles, whether it be walking, running, jogging, working, or even sleeping, all of these billions and billions of signals have been happening on a consistent basis since the day you were born. At its lowest point of activity; REM Sleep, is normally the closest we get to being without our physical senses in our daily lives from all this sensory work our brain does, and to me it seems due to the fact that since it’s not utilizing energy for those sensory elements, it allows for other brain activity to occur while our smarter and more adept sub-conscience brain wakes up and goes to work. What if we could trigger this on our own without the cloudiness of REM sleep? What if we could harness the voice of our sub-consciousness?

Through isolation tanks, people are saying they can. Isolation Tanks however are more descriptively referred to as Sensory Deprivation Tanks, as this is essentially what they are, and is a bit more explanatory as to how the “isolation tank” really works.

The way it works for those of you that have never been is you’re taken to a private relaxing/cozy candle lit room (at least where I was) that consists of a cushioned chair, a shower, a place to hang your clothes and the tank itself. You’re supplied with a nice towel, and some earplugs (which I suggest using, or you’ll have salt in your ear for days), q-tips, box of tissue and big bottles of Aveda shampoo and conditioner and shower gel. You’re told to shower off first, then hop into the tank in your birthday suit. Once you’re inside the tank you lay down however you feel is comfortable. Filled with water that is heated to the temperature of your skin; roughly 93 – 94 degrees, the water is pre-mixed with 800 lbs of Epson salt. This creates the buoyancy that allows you to float effortlessly. All this is done so that when you float and eventually become still, you no longer feel the water line on your skin because what you are floating on and your skins temperature are almost identical, making your body feel as if it’s being held up by nothing at all.

At first you struggle to gain bearing on your surroundings. Being that the water is 90ish degrees, it’s a tiny-tad stuffy, but even being someone who smoked for 14yrs (I quit 3yrs ago) and being asthmatic, I had no breathing problems. You’ll play with the weightlessness for a bit and then you’ll take a few to find your comfortable spot, then you just lay there, eyes open or closed and you can just feel your muscles being released, at one point I didn’t even realize that I was holding my arms on the water till they just gave in to the floating aspect of it and just let go on their own. One of the things you may first notice is the complete silence. The next will be the blackness. I personally was not able to get the feeling of disconnection due to my tinnitus (constant ringing in the ears, heard most when its quiet) but the next time I go, Ill be equipped with a set of long waterproof headphones and some mp3s of either binaural beats or white static, or a mix of both.

But my float session was no where near a failed attempt to explore. To start off, you literally become a think tank. What’s seems to be different personally between thinking in the tank, and say the rush of thought that breaks through right when you lay down to go to sleep is the uncanny ability to control the waves of thoughts. To be able to “reach out” pick it up, contemplate, solve and move on, its like problem solving in fast forward, it was an intellectual rush that I’ve never felt before. And that just skims the mental aspect of the experience. The relaxation of nothingness is something to be “seen” and not read, it just doesn’t do it justice. As for the physical aspect, this is nearly what was the most rewarding. I know the tank helps with relaxation of the muscles, and the Epson salt helps with blood circulation, and lowers blood pressure and most likely a lot more than I haven’t discovered (due to their only being so many hours in the day to read) as to how this happened. Just yesterday I was walking around Chicago and was almost teary eyed that I was walking with no limp whatsoever and virtually pain free in my foot, I was in awe, because for quite literally over 1,000 days that’s how it had been.

It does seem like the muscles are getting tense again, but no where near what it was, and nothings stopping me from making this a bi-monthly ordeal, if I had the money, Id pay hundreds of dollars for a few days free of pain with out needing some sort of pain relief medication, yet, all I had to pay was $40. And now I’m seeing that they have 5 sessions for $125. Priceless. In retrospect, I don’t know if floating is for everyone. It’s a different experience and requires a bit of an open mind. It’s a confined space where you’re left to your own devices, and if you’ve never been alone with your own devices, it will defiantly be a new experience for you. I recommend that everyone try it once, I’m certainly glad I did.

Sometimes we all have to take a step back and take notice to the advancements in technology; and the aspects in place, as to why we are as far as we are when it comes to the technology we have grown accustomed to. Without medical advancements in Neurology and our now very (yet still limited) extensive knowledge of the brain, this site and others like it would not exist.

This is the story of Jennifer Bechard of Michigan about her fight against Hydrocephalus and what YOU can do to help.  She has agreed to share her tale  for CerebralHack.com in hopes that more people will take notice of this illness that affects so many and educate those that may not be familiar with Hydrocephalus. What is Hydrocephalus? How does it feel to have a headache all day, everyday? Never experiencing a moment without any form of relief? Although hydrocephalus is not the typical household word, it is not uncommon. Hydrocephalus, commonly referred to as “water on the brain”, is a lifelong chronic neurological condition, characterized by an increased volume of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) within the spaces inside the brain. Hydrocephalus affects over one million Americans from newborns to seniors and presently, there is no cure….

The most common treatment for hydrocephalus, and the most common procedure performed by pediatric neurosurgeons in the U.S., is surgical implantation of a device called a shunt. A shunt is a flexible tube and valve system, draining CSF from the brain to another part of the body. Oftentimes repeated neurosurgical operations are necessary to treat hydrocephalus. Fifty percent of shunted individuals require a revising operation within two years. An estimated 40,000-shunt operations are performed each year in this country as standard treatment. This is 1 every 13 minutes. Due to the lack of advancements in these treatment methods, many people with hydrocephalus are unable to lead full and productive lives. Hydrocephalus is not discussed nearly enough. We need to be heard; our stories need to be told. Those lives affected by hydrocephalus need to know there is hope for a brighter future, support is available! Awareness is vital & raising funds for research is crucial.

There needs to be a better way of life for those suffering. The management of recurrent shunt malfunctions remains a serious problem for all too many shunted patients. I know this because at the age of 11 I was diagnosed with Communicating Hydrocephalus. I have undergone 87 surgeries to correct my shunt, over 60 of them in just the past 3 years. My life has been put on hold due to several shunt complications. My senior year of high school my health declined tremendously, my life was changing & I needed to adjust very quickly.

Thousands of lives have been saved through shunt technology, but the overall design of shunt valves has changed little through the past 50 years. There is much more research that needs to be done to improve shunt technology, therefore improving the quality of life. I can honestly say that I do not know what it feels like to live a day without a headache or what it means to be pain free. But I am not alone in this & that is exactly what inspires me to help in the fight to find a cure and create prevention. During one of my long hospital stays my mom and I felt we needed to get involved and we needed to make a difference. After contacting the Hydrocephalus Association, my mom learned there wasn’t a Hydrocephalus WALK in Michigan. In 2007 she started the First Annual Detroit Hydrocephalus WALK. We are hoping that each year the walk will continue to grow and become a large statewide event. By the year 2010, the Hydrocephalus Association is hoping to have events in each state.

This year we are hosting the Third Annual Detroit Hydrocephalus WALK-WHEEL-RUN And Family Fun Day at Livonia’s Rotary Park, located at 32300 6 mile, Livonia, MI 48152 on Sunday, August 2, 2009. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. at Rotary Pavilions 1 and 2. The 3-mile walk is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. This walk is truly inspirational and his given me the motivation I need to fight through each day. I believe I was given this life for a reason, and I am strong enough to live it. I have hydrocephalus; hydrocephalus does not have me. I will not let this illness beat me and I will never let the pain control my life. My goal and lifelong mission is to reach out to others, share my experiences, give support, and restore hope. I am more determined now than ever to raise awareness, funds for research, and bring those affected together. With the help of the Hydrocephalus Association we will take steps towards improving lives. Please help The Detroit Hydrocephalus WALK reach our fundraising goal.

Pass this onto family, friends, & co-workers. http://www.gifttool.com/athon/AthonDetails?ID=1488&AID=751 If you would like to attend the walk & would like more information, e-mail me at Jenn.Bechard@gmail.com or Denise Bechard at DJBhydrowalkMI@gmail.com. For more information on Hydrocephalus and the Hydrocephalus Association please visit: http://hydroassoc.org/ Thank you for your time and generosity.

Remember saving lives isn’t enough; we need to attend to the quality of life! Jennifer Bechard CO-Chair Detroit Hydrocephalus WALK