Double Amputee Controls Bionic Arms with his Mind

[Guest]

 

Looks like we're one step closer to Deus-Ex style augmetics. 

Some good news for amputees coming in the next five to ten years thanks to Johns Hopkins University and DARPA.

 

 

Scientists recently equipped double amputee Les Baugh with a pair of Modular Prosthetics Limbs (MPL) that he controls with his mind.

But it wasn’t easy for Baugh, a Colorado man who lost both arms in an electrical accident nearly 40 years ago. Surgeons at Johns Hopkins essentially had to wake up dead nerves, and reassign others in Baugh's chest, so he could control the arms through his nerves. The process of “re-enverating” was, as Baugh said in the above video, quite painful.

 

Currently in a prototype phase, the bionic arms were attached to a special harness that uses pattern recognition to observe muscle activity generated by the re-awakened nerves. It then translates the activity into impulses that move the fully articulated arms and hands. According to researchers, they provide Baugh with 30 degrees of motion on both sides.

 

Source: http://mashable.com/2014/12/18/double-amputee-bionic-arms/

[loccilucas]

Give it 20 years, and losing your arm won't even be that bad

[ERSCreeper]

Deus Ex here we come!! :>

[SpagettiNinja]

This is awesome.

[StingBull]

So he is a psychic. Telekinesic?

[UnknownEngineer]

Did he ask for that?

[helpingaskewcokemansarcasm]

He probably asked for this.

[Majinferno]

Pretty cool stuff. Technology never fails to amaze me.

[ObeseWalrus]

Super cool!

[ZetZet]

Give it 20 years, and losing your arm won't even be that bad

It will still be pretty fucking painful, but you will be able to recover. I wonder what will come first, prostetic arms or lab grown arm replacements.

[Linus_torvalds]

Give it 20 years, and losing your arm won't even be that bad

Bad? Stupid enough people will themselves cut their arm to attach that arms

[Constantine]

Its more like using muscle activity in his chest and shoulders. The painful part that most people skim is that they had to perform surgery to re-purpose some of the nerves in his chest and back just so electrodes can classify them.