Bionic Man May Soon be a Reality

choongiri writes "The London Guardian is reporting on the creation of replacement eyes and working hands in the race to build a $6bn human. Currently being worked on is everything from bionic eyes to an entire exoskeleton enabling the wearer to carry 200lbs. From the article: 'The 1970s gave us the six-million-dollar man. Thirty years and quite a bit of inflation later we have the six-billion-dollar human: not a physical cyborg as such, instead an umbrella term for the latest developments in the growing field of technology for human enhancement.'"

Mechanical vs biological

[Bombula]

A central issue remains for bionics: will biotech make it redundant?

Sure, having an exoskeleton that makes you stronger will continue to have utility, but will we really need bionics in, say, 20 years if new biological eyes or arms or legs can be grown using a person's own DNA?

Re:Mechanical vs biological

[Jarnin]

I think the point of this research is to develop systems that surpass natural systems in specific ways; for example, bionic eyes might have a zoom feature, something that biotech companies would have problems creating from your DNA. Eventually biotech will surpass bionics, but at that point we won't be "human" anymore. We'll have designed ourselves into a new species.

*London* Guardian??

[Dynamoo]

It is of course the Manchester Guardian traditionally, although it is published now in London. Although the name changed in the fifties, the popular Radio 4 presenter Brian Redhead [wikipedia.org] stubbornly referred to it by it's original name until his death in 1994. Partly as a result of this, many people still refer to it as the Manchester Guardian. The London Guardian it is not, and never has been - I guess the British Guardian newspaper might annoy pedants like me less ;)

Although I think most people still call it the Grauniad because of it's historical propensity for tpyogarphical errors.

Re:Bionic prosthetics

[blueZhift]

It would be nice if the state of the art were further along, but I can tell you that active research in advancing the use of prosthetic limbs is taking place at Northwestern University. There's a clinical investigator who is doing a study involving the use of an amputee's remaining muscle and nerves in the stump to control a prosthetic limb in at least two degrees of freedom. So instead of a muscle twitch say only opening the hand, the user would be able to both open and close the hand. If the techique being studied proves successful, it should open the way to more and more capable devices. Sorry I don't have more details right now, but this is really fascinating stuff.

I think the reasons for the hold up are twofold. One, the mechanical devices are only now becoming small enough, strong enough, and smart enough for more complex use. And human studies not only take a long time to do for a host of reasons, including ethical ones. This is further slowed down by the lack of researchers to run the clinical studies needed since clinical research is not a career path that is generally well rewarded in the medical profession. The NIH is trying to change that, but with flat budgets for the foreseeable future, it will be a big challenge.