Jesse Sullivan lost both of his arms in a work related accident. He is now the worlds first real bionic man.
How does it work? “NECAL uses nerve-muscle grafts in amputees to gain added control signals for an artificial arm. Doctors take nerves that used to go to the arm and move those nerves onto chest muscles. The nerves grow into the chest muscles, so when the patient thinks “close hand,†a portion of his chest muscle contracts and electrodes that detect this muscle activity tell the computerized arm when to close the hand. Thus, the patient thinks “close hand†and his artificial hand closes. ”
Take a look at a picture gallery and a video of the arm working.
World’s First “Bionic Man”
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This is….
Pretty cool ^^
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Wouldn’t the contraction of the chest muscle get annoying and painful?
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Its actually pretty kewl that these things are a reality now and there is hope for people who loose limbs to gain back most of that functionality.
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Hi, I bookmarked your site in Technorati a while back and forgot about it 🙁 but I just came across your RSS feed and spotted this “Bionic Man” article. I have just done a post about the wo/man machine idea over at my blog. Professor Warwick who I mention, actually has a network connection inserted into his body as well, so he can control things in a similar way but over a large distance.