Artificial hearts, bionic eyes and audio implants are all very real and medically relevant. What about the questionable fringe? Welcome to biohacking.

Fascinating examples of the merger of man and machine keep popping up. Most intriguing are DIY stories like a 5-yr-old’s 3D-printed robotic hand, or the biohacker/grinder who implanted headphones in his ears. But the real rabbit hole is transhumanism.

This cultural and intellectual movement explores technologies to enhance human capacities. It studies the potential benefits and dangers of overcoming human limits. They predict humans may eventually acquire such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label “posthuman.”

Sound far-fetched? Bizarre? Given society's fascination with appearance tweaking and performance enhancing, from plastic surgery and piercing to steroids and quantified self; plus mainstream adoption of medical implants, self-trackers, smart devices and wearables; is human hacking the inevitable next step?