Lifeboat Foundation

Precise stimulation could be useful for visual prosthetics or brain-computer interfaces.

In the George Lucas classic Star Wars, hero Luke Skywalker’s arm is severed and amputated during a lightsaber fight and consequently fitted with a bionic arm that he can use as if it were his own limb. At the time the script was written, such a remedy was pure science fiction; however, the ability to manufacture bionic arms that have the functionality and even feel of a natural limb is becoming very real, with goals of launching a prototype as soon as 2009. Already, primates have been trained to feed themselves using a robotic arm merely by thinking about it, while brain sensors have been picking up their brain-signal patterns since 2003. The time has come for implementing this technology on paralyzed human patients and amputees. This article will provide a brief explanation of the technology, its current status, and the potential future it holds.

In Brief

• Scientists are developing new ways to bridge the gap between our bodies and electronics by mimicking the connections between neurons.
• Countless individuals stand to gain increased functionality and quality of life by these new developments in bio-hybrid devices like prosthetics and brain implants.

Harvard bioethics specialist Glenn Cohen considers the complex question of whether humans should mix their genetic material with other animals to create chimeras.

In an epidsode of the dystopian near-future series, Black Mirror, a small, implantable device behind the ear grants the ability to remember, access, and replay every moment of your life in perfect detail, like a movie right before your eyes.

Theodore Berger, a biomedical engineer at the University of Southern California, can’t promise that level of perfect recall—perhaps for the better—but he is working on a memory prosthesis. The device, surgically implanted directly into the brain, mimics the function of a structure called the hippocampus by electrically stimulating the brain in a particular way to form memories—at least in rats and monkeys. And now, he’s testing one that could work in humans.

Berger’s device hinges on a theory about how the hippocampus transforms short-term memories, like where you deposited your keys, into long-term memories—so you can find them later. In his early experiments, he played a tone and then puffed air in a rabbit’s face, causing it to blink. Eventually, just playing the tone would make the rabbit blink, just like Pavlov’s famous salivating dogs. Berger recorded the hippocampus’ activity with electrodes, and as the rabbits learned to associate the tone with the air puff, patterns in those signals changed in a predictable way.

Continue reading “The Neuroscientist Who’s Building a Better Memory for Humans” »

A punky warrior races across a barren wasteland, pursued by a hulking cyborg. There’s not much more to go on in the visually stunning Lost Boy, but since it’s a proof-of-concept film, mood and style are the main attraction. It’s by PostPanic Pictures, whose visually-rich short Sundays received feature interest last year.

[Vimeo Staff Picks]

Continue reading “An Eerie Landscape Becomes a Hunting Ground in Cyberpunk Concept Short Lost Boy” »

You know that whole chaos theory idea (okay, we saw it in an Ashton Kutcher movie) about how a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can trigger a hurricane in another?

Well, the 2016 equivalent is a project where scientists in Russia wear an exoskeleton to control a connected robot in Germany.

Continue reading “Wearable exoskeleton lets researchers in Russia control a robot in Germany” »

Trailer for Ghost in the Shell.

Based on the internationally-acclaimed sci-fi property, Ghost in the Shell follows Major, a special ops, one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid, who leads the elite task force Section 9. Devoted to stopping the most dangerous criminals and extremists, Section 9 is faced with an enemy whose singular goal is to wipe out Hanka Robotic’s advancements in cyber technology.

Continue reading “Ghost in the Shell Trailer” »

In Brief:

• Bionic eyes are already in development and could alleviate sight issues for hundreds of millions suffering from visual impairments or blindness.
• The mechanical eyes could also provide enhanced sight so cybernetic humans could see more of the electromagnetic spectrum.

With an estimated 285 million people worldwide with visual impairment, many treatments and technological innovations have long been in development. The panacea of restoring sight to the blind is the stuff of sci-fi: the bionic eye.