"Wired Man," a mannequin recently created by BT Laboratories of Ipswich, England, gives researchers a new tool for testing the impacts of medical and communications technologies on human beings.

Wired Man has already submitted to pacemakers, pain-relief modules, and anti-epilepsy devices, all of which simultaneously fire electrical pulses into his body. He is also being outfitted with artificial body parts, internally and externally, and is becoming a symbol of the coming Bionic Age.

"Almost by a process of technological osmosis, an increasing percentage of the human race is increasingly becoming cyborg," says Peter Cochrane, head of research at BT Laboratories. "Around 20% of the functional parts of the human body can be replaced. This includes the knee, hip, ankle, and elbow joints; artificial hearts, ears, and skin; and shortly we shall have lungs, liver, pancreas, and other vital organs as well. There are now over half a million people walking around with electronics embedded inside them in the form of pacemakers and so on."

Each of these artificial body parts will have a memory bank that can be downloaded remotely by radio signals, so patients suffering problems with their pacemakers, for example, need not go to the hospital. Doctors could simply signal back a change in the device's algorithms.

Wired Man will also be accessorized with information and communications devices, such as an intelligent signet ring containing medical records, passport, driver's license, and bank account information. Wearable computers will be possible by the early part of the twenty-first century, according to Cochrane.

Wired Man helps the researchers check the individual functioning of all these units, many of which are electricity-hungry BT Labs is experimenting with a power vest that will convert body heat to electricity in order to keep future wired humans running. Cynthia G. Wagner