8 thoughts on “Bionics… it’s about time.”

  3. Awesome indeed.

    “We’re excited about collaborating with the military,” said the developer of Sullivan’s arm, Dr. Todd Kuiken…

    Someone can smell funding grants. 😉

    It’s interesting that they go via a muscle, rather than direct from the nerve. My biology education didn’t go beyond school, but wouldn’t picking up the electrical impulses of the nerves be easier than their effect on muscle tissue? It also wouldn’t require overriding the behaviour of an otherwise (presumably) functioning muscle. And would work for heads-in-jars, if they could “just” come up with some artificial blood-maintainance organs. Presumably, there’s some mechanical device poking his sholder to provide the touch response (v.s. zapping nerves), too, given the way the article is worded.

    But, yeah, good to see this stuff coming out of sci-fi and into real-sci. I’m suprised that Technovelgy doesn’t seem to have picked it up yet. I wonder how many decades it’ll be before we can get JC Denton/Massey/Doythaban–style brain interfaces. Or before people are using this for body modification. (Extra pair of hands, anyone?)

    2. Re: Awesome indeed.

      I think (shoot me down if I’m wrong) that muscle movements in arm stumps are what actuate conventional split hook prosthetic hands. I take it the electrical (?) energy coming direct from a nerve end is insufficient and that the muscle acts as a natural amplifier.

      Prosthetics have come a long way from the cosmetic limbs of the Great War (pink “natural” rubber for officers, steel and cork for enlisted men!)

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