Just give me one thing I can play for.
Disco boys on bicycles.
So what if too many times we have been here, both
Poetic Retrospective
The Weather votes for Kelly Clarkson.The term cyborg is a contraction of cybernetic organism, and really is just a catchy way of referring to biological organisms integrated with machines. My family friend with a hook for a hand is a cyborg, as are all the grandparents with artificial hips. The stray dog at the vet's office with wheels instead of back legs is a cyborg puppy.
When we think of cyborgs, however, images from movies and tv tend to be the first things we conjure up. Soon these images may become more of a reality than perhaps we had once thought. Even as pioneers (or loonies, depending on your viewpoint) Kevin Warwick and Steve Mann strive to make that fantasy image a reality, medical science is doing the same, albeit with a different purpose.
Sci fi fans may recall Geordi La Forge from Star Trek:The Next Generation, the blind engineer, played by actor LeVar Burton, who could see using a visor that connected to an implant in his head. The visor "saw" the world around him, and the implant transmitted the data to his brain. This futuristic solution to a significant medical problem is now much closer to reality than the 24th century. Currently researchers are developing a device that seems eerily similar to Geordi's visor. Tiny video cameras are mounted on goggles that project the images from the cameras on the retina of the wearer. The goggles are transparent, so if the wearer has any remaining vision, it would not be lost. The super high tech part of this system is the so-called "bionic eye," a tiny battery that is implanted in the iris that powers the unit. Testing on rats is currently underway, and human testing could be starting as soon as 2008. Only a few hundred years early.
People with vision impairments are not the only ones who may soon be aided by new cyborg technologies. Some almost unbelievable experiments done by a team from Duke University are promising amazing advances for people who use prosthetic limbs. In a nutshell, the experiments showed that is possible to control machines using only thoughts. Yes, that is telekinesis, and it really is real. The experiments were performed by a macaque monkey named Aurora, and she did it all playing video games. She started out playing a game using a joystick, being rewarded with juice for successful periods of play. Electrodes had been implanted in her brain that were connected to a robot arm, and when the joystick was taken away from Aurora, she quickly learned that she could use the robotic arm to manipulate the joystick and get her juice just by thinking.
It isn't just monkeys who can do this, either. A young paralyzed man in Rhode Island has a small bank of electrodes implanted in his brain that allow him to control aspects of his television and computer, and amazingly, operate a robot hand. So far, he can open and close the hand and use it to grip items. The US military is also involved in prosthetic research, including thought-control and development of synthetic skin which can transmit sensation to the user. The technology is still in its infancy, but more patients are adopting technology like this, and this new field of neuroprosthetics is poised to revolutionize the lives of paralyzed people.
Prosthetics are no longer necessarily tools only for paralysed people or amputees. A Japanese engineer has developed a bionic suit that helps people walk, lift and generally be stronger. The suit, which is more like something you ride than wear, offers great potential to people who have reduced mobility, but also has applications for manual labour. The suit includes a WiFi enabled computer, batteries, and motors connected to bioelectric sensors that connect to the wearer's muscles. The sensors read the messages sent from the brain to the muscles, and translate the nerve signals to signals to the motors. The suits are planned to be shown off at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi Japan, and are expected to be consumer technology available to purchase at a cost of under $20,000.
As we begin to implant mechanical devices in our bodies, one factor becomes more and more integral: how will we power our mechanical parts? Other researchers in Japan have come up with an elegnat solution: blood-powered fuel cells. That’s right, implanted engines that use the very blood around them to create power. Using the glucose in our blood as fuel, these tiny implantable cells could one day be part of a set of power tools in our bodies.
Human machine integration does not only include items you can wear, control or attach to your body. Indeed, much of the work in using technology to enhance people's life is so small as to be nearly invisible. Nanotechnology is the new cool in the science world, but nanotech does not have to be a long word meaning tiny robots. One of the more promising uses of nanotech is in the use of medical applications, particularly as diagnostic tools. The SmartPill Corporation is starting clinical trials of their capsule that, instead of containing medicine, contains electronics that transmit data about the gastrointestinal system. The patient carries a special receiver which is returned to the physician after the prescribed amount of time. The doctor can then analyse the results, aiding in the diagnosis of gastrointestinal ailments. All without surgery or even sticking a tiny camera where the sun don’t shine. The machinery travels through the patient’s system like any other inert body, but unlike the lego blocks I continually ate as a kid, the housing is specially designed to be safe for consumption and easy to swallow.
Nanotech is also being used to build pharmaceutical delivery systems - another kind of smart pill. A UK licence has been issued and a US patent has been filed for nanotech containers that house drugs that release their payloads only under certain circumstances. The main application for this technology is in the delivery of dangerous anti-cancer drugs. Using such a device, the physician can target cancerous tumors while avoiding healthy cells. This technology will mitigate some of the toxic side-effects of chemotherapy, something that people who are battling cancer will certainly appreciate.
On an even smaller scale, nanoprobes can now poke around a cell's nucleus. Really, they are more like itty bitty glow sticks than a tiny version of NASA's space probe Huygens, but for researchers, this offers the ability to track what happens inside a cell for a longer period of time than they can currently. It may not sound like much, but extending the amount of time one can study a cell opens the door for all kinds of new experiments, helping us learn more about how cells do the magic things they do.
For all of history humanity has built tools to extend and enhance life, and we are now using these tools in closer and closer conjunction with our bodies. As we become more comfortable with integrating technology into our lives and our bodies, it seems inevitable that the people of tomorrow will be more and more enabled by machines that work seamlessly beside or inside them. There are philosophical concerns with this trend, but the current work in medicine promising mitigation of previously debilitating disabilities and easier diagnosis of diseases is difficult to reject. If this is the Rise of the Machines, many would argue, then bring it on.