Science fiction fans love robots, cyborgs, humans that are part machine and machines that act like humans. While Six Million Dollar Man prosthetics are still the stuff of fiction, scientists inch ever closer toward the dream of prosthetic devices that are adequate replacements for a lost body part.
Silvestro Micera, a neural engineer at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in Switzerland, led the team that developed a new prosthetic device that they call the "bionic hand." Dennis Aabo Sørensen is the man in the video that tested the hand for the team. This new technology relies on touch sensors that are connected to electrodes that have been surgically embedded in the nerves of the man's upper arm.
While this is a long way from being available to amputees, it's an amazing breakthrough for an amputee to be able to feel again with fingers that he no longer has.
What science fiction invention would you most like to see become science fact?
*Story via Livescience.com.
The science fiction invention I want the most is the transporter from Star Trek. If you consider the issues with transportation (pollution, massive infrastructure commitments, great distances) the transporter would remedy these and so much more. Of course, in Star Trek, transporters are mostly used for benevolent purposes, our humanity wouldn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree- the transporter would be an epic invention. But what a ridiculously difficult invention to create! You'd have to find a way to replicate a human being at the atomic level, destroy the original then transport the replicated matter to a new coordinate in space and hope it all comes back together properly. But oh so fun to imagine.
DeleteAs far as transporter tech in a reality, I would suspect some sort of wormhole system would make more sense. that way you're not doing the whole atomic thing. perhaps more like stargate or something.
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