So, check out Stelarc - he is an artist that has been performing works based on the body being obsolete since the 1970's. I realize this is art and not science, but I feel that as humans are inspired to discover technology that artists and storytellers guide the way in creating an avenue for the everyman glimpse into what is becoming or what could be. This quote is from the end of a interview that Stelarc did with Stanford University about what he perceives is next for the human body:
Stelarc: It is time to recolonise the body with microminaturised robots to augment out bacterial population, to assist our immunological system, and to monitor the capillary and internal tracts of the body. We need to build an internal surveillance system for the body. We have to develop microbots whose behavior is not pre-programmed, but activated by temperature, blood chemistry, the softness or hardness of tissue and the presence of obstacles in tracts. These robots can then work autonomously on the body. The biocompatibility of technology is not due to its substance, but to its scale. Speck-sized robots are easily swallowed and may not even be sensed. At a nanotech level, machines will navigate and inhabit cellular spaces and manipulate molecular structures to extend the body from within.
If bionics refers to building a replacement or augmented piece of anatomy it's sibling would be cybernetics, where technology is used to add something that did not previously exist to a body A view of cybernetics available today is the concept of adding on extra sensory perceptions, such as a sense of magnetic north with Cyborg Nest's - North Sense :
Two specially designed titanium bars are inserted under the skin and act as the anchoring system. The North Sense attaches to the bars and vibrates whenever facing the magnetic north.
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