Sprinder, D., Graham, L. et al.
A team of engineers at Columbia University have announced the invention of a trippy new prosthetic hand specifically designed for amputees to stare at in awe and bewilderment while under the influence of psychedelic drugs [1].
“The standard prosthetic is far smoother than the average human hand, and lacks the wrinkles, hair and pockmarks that really blow your fucking mind,” explained lead engineer Sharon Prost. “Our research found that users on LSD or mushrooms experience a tragically pedestrian trip staring at regular prosthetic appendages, and we know we had to do something about it.”
The new model features details like patchy knuckle hairs and those cool spirally fingerprints that would fascinate anyone in the throes of an ecstasy binge [2].
The prosthetic’s designers say the hand will triple the likelihood of amputees stoned out of their minds spending hours on a couch speculating why human beings are designed the way they are, imagining millions of microscopic worlds exactly like ours existing in the folds of their palms, and theorizing that God might have given humans five fingers instead of six or four because maybe five is, like, an important number to God or some shit.
“Unfortunately,” lamented Prost, “we cannot guarantee that these hands will ever seem so lifelike and sinister that they appear to be gaining their own agency and trying to strangle their owner. But we’re working on it.”
