Inject Your Eyeballs With Night Vision
Synopsis In "people becoming superhuman" news, a small independent research group has figured out how to give humans night vision, allowing them to see over 50 meters in the dark for a short time. Summary Science for the Masses, a group of biohackers based a couple hours north of Los Angeles in Tehachapi, California,theorized they could enhance healthy eyesight enough that it would induce night vision.
'Cyborg' spinal implant could help paralysed walk again
The implant, called ‘e-Dura’, is so effective because it mimics the soft tissue around the spine – known as the dura mater – so that the body does not reject its presence. “Our e-Dura implant can remain for a long period of time on the spinal cord or cortex,” said Professor Stéphanie Lacour. “This opens up new therapeutic possibilities for patients suffering from neurological trauma or disorders, particularly individuals who have become paralyzed following spinal cord injury.” Previous experiments had shown that chemicals and electrodes implanted in the spine could take on the role of the brain and stimulate nerves, causing the rats' legs to move involuntarily when they were placed on a treadmill. But this is the first study to show a simple gadget can help rats walk again and be tolerated by the body. The electronic ribbon is placed directly onto the spinal cord However the new gadget is flexible and stretchy enough that it can be placed directly onto the spinal cord.
Cyborgs – scientists create biological tissue with embedded wiring
Under its human skin, James Cameron’s Terminator was a fully-armored cyborg built out of a strong, easy-to-spot hyperalloy combat chassis – but judging from recent developments, it looks like Philip K. Dick and his hard-to-recognize replicants actually got it right. In a collaboration between Harvard, MIT and Boston Children's Hospital, researchers have figured out how to grow three-dimensional samples of artificial tissue that are very intimately embedded within nanometer-scale electronics, to such an extent that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Putting aside futuristic cyberpunk dreams, embedding electronics deep within biological tissue has concrete and immediate uses in the applied sciences of today, because it could lead to a finely tuned, two-way communication link between the biological and the synthetic. So far, our attempts at creating an intimate blend of lab-grown tissues and nanoscale electronics have led to mediocre results at best. Share
Scientists Regenerate Leg Muscles With Pig Bladder Tissue
Muscle can regenerate after an injury, but not if large amounts are destroyed -- such as with military wounds and traumatic accidents. Treatments are limited for these extreme cases of muscle loss, where scar tissue formed to fill in the gap. Stem cells have been shown to work, and these therapies usually follow a similar pattern: take stem cells from the patient, help them develop into the cells of choice, then inject them back. Now, a University of Pittsburgh team led by Stephen Badylak developed a different kind of stem cell treatment that doesn’t involve taking out and adding back stem cells; rather, the stem cells stay in the body. To create thin sheets of biological scaffolding, the team stripped the lining of pig bladders of all their cells -- except for collagen, sugars, and structural proteins. After the method was successful in rodents with injured hind limbs, the team moved on to humans who have lost between 58 and 90 percent of their leg muscle.
Neurosurgeon to attempt world's first head transplant
An Italian neurosurgeon has unveiled plans to perform the first human head transplant by the end of 2017. Dr Sergio Canavero announced his plan at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons in the US state of Maryland on Friday, saying he believes he has a 90 percent chance of success. He said his patient will be a 30-year-old Russian man, Valery Spiridonov, who has the muscle-wasting disease, Werdnig-Hoffmann. "Of course there is a margin of risk, I cannot deny that," Canavero said. "I made the announcement only when I was pretty sure I could do it." Both men, who have been in regular contact through video chats, believe the controversial procedure is Spiridonov's best hope, the Reuters news agency reported. "If it goes good, I think I will get rid of the limits which I have today and I will be more independent and this will much improve my life," Spiridonov said. "We are making a huge step forward in science and I hope it will be OK." Source: Reuters
A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feel - News - Gadgets & Tech
The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors. Dr Micera said that the hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto two of the arm’s main nerves, the median and the ulnar nerves. This should allow the man to control the hand by his thoughts, as well as receiving sensory signals to his brain from the hand’s sensors. “This is real progress, real hope for amputees. “It is clear that the more sensory feeling an amputee has, the more likely you will get full acceptance of that limb,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston.
Researchers Create Thousand Strong Swarm Of Bots That Can Assemble Into Complex Shapes
By itself, this simple little puck-shaped robot is cute, but not revolutionary: It’s a few centimeters across, stands on three pin-like legs, moves a centimeter a second, and costs about $20. Put a thousand or so of these Kilobots together, and you have the largest robotic swarm the world has ever seen. Self-assembling robotic systems exist, but they’ve been limited to dozens, maybe a few hundred robots. Now, a trio of Harvard researchers led by Michael Rubenstein has programmed 1,024 Kilobots to organize themselves into various shapes, such as stars, a wrench, and letters of the alphabet. The work was published in Science this week. Kilobots were designed to mimic the behavior of a swarm of bees, colony of army ants, or flock of starlings. These inexpensive robots have two little vibrating motors to help them slide across surfaces on their skinny rigid legs. The infrared transmitters are also used by the scientists to give commands to all the bots simultaneously. Photo Gallery
Paralyzed woman walks again with 3D-printed robotic exoskeleton
A 3D printed robotic exoskeleton has enabled a woman paralyzed from the waist down to walk again Image Gallery (5 images) 3D Systems, in collaboration with Ekso Bionics, has created a 3D-printed robotic exoskeleton that has restored the ability to walk in a woman paralyzed from the waist down. The Ekso-Suit was trialled and demonstrated by Amanda Boxtel, who was told by her doctor that she'd never walk again after a skiing accident in 1992. View all Robotic exoskeletons were once the stuff of sci-fi movies, bestowing their wearers with superhuman strength and speed. ReWalk has provided powered exoskeletons for individuals with spinal cord injuries since 2011 and the EU-funded Mindwalker project has developed a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton. Boxtel's Ekso-Suit was created by first scanning her thighs, shins and spine to create a model from which the basic personalized exoskeleton could be 3D-printed. The video below shows the Ekso-Suit in action. Source: 3D Systems About the Author
