Rise of the Machines

The reviews of the forth film in the Terminator series, Terminator Salvation, were frequently scathing and opened up many questions as to the technology of the machines (who builds the machines and why can’t their weapons be more hardcore?), but what kind of cyborg technology is actually available?

Surely by now we are close to inventing robotic eyes that can see in the dark and mechanical legs that can run super fast? If I wanted to shed this mortal shell and climb into something a bit more, well, futuristic, what could I hope to get for my pains?

A “cyborg” is a cybernetic organism, or any organism that contains technology to replace or enhance part of the natural body. This theoretically entails that wearing contact lenses or wearing a hearing-aid makes one a cyborg, but a more accurate definition would be an animal who has bionics or robotics implanted into their body.

With troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for prosthetic limbs has increased massively in recent years. Prostheses technology is now capable of allowing somebody with no arm or leg to control an artificial limb with their thought alone. The replacement limbs not only look relatively natural but allow them do many of the simple tasks previously unavailable to them as a result of the amputation.

The C-Leg, developed by prostheses pioneers Otto Bock Healthcare, is an example of a neurally-controlled artificial limb. Its multiple sensors receive signals 50 times a second that are processed into a determination of where the amputee wishes to move their limb. A microprocessor then sends the signals to a hydraulic cylinder that can rotate and extend the knee accordingly. The revolutionary technology essentially guesses your next move and adjusts accordingly. It stiffens to support you if you seem like you will trip or stumble and relaxes to a natural gait while walking. It enables the amputee to change speed and tackle hills without any awkward jerks.

The iLimb is a prosthetic hand that reads electronic muscle signals generated in the remaining muscles of the amputee’s arm and moves accordingly. Each finger moves independently and has a high degree of sensitivity. Scottish manufacturer, Touch Bionics, explain: The “built in stall detection tells each individual finger when it has sufficient grip on an object and, therefore, when to stop powering”. The technology is a huge leap from that which proceeded. Never before have amputees had the option of such a visually realistic prosthetic with such a degree of manual dexterity.

Any machine needs power. A mechanical heart is available, but currently only for patients with very particular characteristics: they must be older than 18 and suffer from heart failure so severe that, despite the height of medical care, they are expected to die within 30 days. The AbioCor artificial heart is the first self-contained and implantable artificial heart that can keep people functional. The patient would not need tubes protruding through the skin and would not be bedridden. Only a small battery pack, worn on a belt, is needed to keep the AbioCor pumping. The first one was implanted in July 2001 and the patient lived for an extra 151 days. The second patient was given less than 20% chance of surviving 30 days before the operation, but lived for 512 days after receiving the new heart.

There is technology available, pioneered by a team from the University of Southern California, that restores some vision to those with certain forms of blindness but it is currently reliant on the user wearing large dark glasses that house a small camera. To simplify, the camera sends information to a retinal implant via electrodes. The message is received by the brain allowing the user to make out dots of light and dark equal to the number of electrodes. The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System has so far been successful in clinical trials using 16 electrodes and it is currently being tested with 60.

The Boston Retinal Implant Project has an even more remarkable mission statement. Their aim is to develop an implantable prosthesis to restore vision to patients with certain forms of blindness. Their website claims that they have already created an “ultra thin (several times thinner than a human hair), flexible, wireless micro-electronic device” which houses a chip that will control delivery of electrical pulses to the retina. They have performed hours long electrical stimulation studies in humans and are waiting for authorisation to fix long-term implants into patients. If successful, sufferers of certain forms of blindness will face having their vision restored with technology that will not be visible on their body.

Most of the body can, amazingly, now be exchanged for an artificial counterpart. Artificial livers, new skin grown from stem cells, pneumatic muscles and bionic lungs and stomachs are already a commercial reality and, as ever, the technology is getting better rapidly. Maybe our kids and grandchildren will save money to buy eyes that can zoom and see in the dark, or lungs that can deal with having water inside them. Watch out John Connor- the machines may be coming!



References:

C Leg: http://www.ottobockus.com/cps/rde/xchg/ob_us_en/hs.xsl/17084.html

iLimb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFrL7xt7kI

AbioCor: http://www.abiomed.com/products/heart_replacement.cfm

BRIP: http://www.bostonretinalimplant.org/