I love living in the 21st century! Not only is technology making life more fun and much easier, but it also has the promise of truly saving and improving lives. Check this out...
Pentagon-backed scientists are getting ready to test thought-controlled prosthetic arms on human subjects, by rewiring their brains to fully integrate the artificial limbs.
Already in recent years, we've seen very lifelike artificial arms, monkeys nibbling bananas with mind-controlled robotic limbs, and even humans whose muscle fibers have been wired to prosthetic devices. But this is the first time that human brains will be opened up, implanted with a neural interface, and then used to operate an artificial limb.
It's a giant step that'll transform the devices, which were little more than hooks and cables only 50 years ago. And the progress is courtesy of Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out R&D agency, who've been sponsoring brain-controlled replacement limbs as part of their Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program.
Incredible stuff, straight out of Star Wars, don't you think? Read more here. But that's not all.
For a full-body version, check out Raytheon's XOS2:
More here. But that's still not all...
Until now, all other artificial heart transplants were just temporary relief. A 15 year old boy from Italy became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart, due to the Duchenne syndrome which was wasting his muscles away.
It was this syndrome which meant he couldn't receive a heart transplant, causing doctors in Rome to insert the 4cm-long electrically-activated hydraulic pump "heart' in his left ventricle. A plug behind his left ear and battery attached to his belt powers the heart, which will gift him another 20 - 25 years of life that he wouldn't have had without this operation.
Sure, these are early prototypes, but we had to have the Model T before we got to the 2010 Ferrari, you know? Just think what could happen when you put all this stuff together...it's amazing! It is good to live nowadays.
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