When can we become cyborg?
Cyberpunk is back in fashion. This year should be the game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided , well, in the future we are waiting for Detroit: Become Human David Cage. And that's not counting Cyberpunk 2077 , which the creators of The Witcher are currently working on. But more importantly, cyberpunk is increasingly invading the real world. Bionic prostheses have long ceased to be fiction, now even photomodels wear them. And artificial eyes already help blind people see the world. And this is just the beginning. There are still years of progress ahead, which sooner or later will allow us to become like Adam Jensen . And what is being done for this today? Watch the video of our colleagues from Igr@Mail.Ru, and read the text version under the cut.
To begin with, we will have to disappoint those who are dreaming about plugging their brains in the near future. Modern implants cannot make you a Terminator. And cut off your living arm for the sake of the ultra-modern prosthesis is also not worth it. Serial bionic prostheses are created to help people who have lost their limbs or were completely born without them. However, serious progress has been made. Prostheses can now connect to the human nervous system and receive commands from the brain. The accuracy of control is such that with the help of mechanical fingers you can, for example, tie shoelaces.
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Modern cyborgs can easily engage in outdoor activities and sports: run, go hiking, ride bikes and even swim - the latest electronic prostheses are not afraid of water and dirt. And their components can be changed, as if in a constructor. One model of the foot is better suited for jogging, and another for walking.
Perhaps in the future, these prostheses will allow to set records that are not available to the average person. And the American engineer Hugh Herr claims that the native human legs will soon seem to be a relic of the past.
Herr himself lost both legs during his ascent into the mountains. Now the prosthesis of his design allows people not only to engage in mountaineering, but also to dance . Herr creates prostheses that can replace real legs in everything - including sensations. They are able to process the impulses sent by the nervous system and transform them into movements. According to the inventor himself, this differs little from the management of a real leg.
However, some went even further. For example, the Bao Research Group is working to recreate human skin. More precisely, while only sensations from it. Special sensors from nanotubes will transmit signals from touching the nervous system. And she already - to transmit them to the brain.
By the way, scientists have also learned how to grow high-grade artificial skin. But while it is used only for the treatment of burns. There is progress in the cultivation of human soft tissue. The next step is to make them not reject carbon-metal bones. What the final result will look like, you've already seen.
Of course, carbonate arms and legs alone are not enough to become a full-fledged cyborg. The next step is to implant your digital cameras instead of your eyes. And today, such experiments are also underway.
For example, a Canadian director Rob Spence a few years ago replaced his lost eye with a camera . Seeing it in the dark with its help is still impossible, because the camera is not connected to the owner’s brain in any way. All you can do with it is to record short first-person videos. Fortunately, the second eye of the director remained intact, and there is no need to change it yet.
But science has already learned to help people who have completely lost their sight.
One of the ways - wearing special glasses with cameras. The signal from these cameras takes a tiny chip mounted on the back of the retina. The image is not very clear, but it already allows blind people to navigate in space. The implantation of such devices has recently been conducted in a pair of UK clinics.
However, Australians from Monash University want to do without any operations at all. Here they create a system capable of transmitting a signal from the cameras directly to the brain using electrodes that are mounted on the back of the head. The technology is still in development, but in 2016, the authors want to get the first results. And we believe that they will succeed. After all, right now bionics is experiencing an unprecedented rise. Mechanical prostheses from fiction are transformed into the mainstream. Today they are worn not only by self-taught engineers, but even by actresses and photomodels. For example, the American model Rebecca Marin has been on the podium for many years with her bionic arm. Rebecca's goal is to prove that a mechanized body can also be beautiful. And looking at her, we are quite ready to believe it.
However, the wide distribution of bionic prostheses is only a matter of time. Much more interesting is the question of where to go next. Now bionics has learned to help people with disabilities, but the next step is the next step - the empowerment of healthy people. Work in this direction is no less active. For example, Canadian optometrist Garth Webb invented bionic lenses that tripled the limit of human vision. Installing these lenses will look no more difficult than regular laser eye surgery. But their capabilities are no match for what laser surgery gives. The tiny biomechanical camera is able to instantly change the focus from a very close distance to infinity and makes the patients vision much sharper, because it has three times higher resolution than the real eye. Dr. Webb hopes that the bionic lenses will go on sale in 2017, after passing all clinical trials.
But it's far from a fact that science should continue to try to improve a person by implanting extraneous glands. After all, there is a more logical way - editing the genome. With its help, scientists in the coming years could have cured many congenital diseases even at the embryo stage. This will open the way to more serious challenges - for example, defeating epidemics and aging. Well, and there, you see, it comes to letting fireballs out of their hands.
However, experiments with the human genome are still banned in many developed countries. But we are sure that progress cannot be stopped. For example, in April 2015, Chinese scientists conducted an operation to change the genome of the human embryo. More recently, editing of human DNA was approved by the UK Department of Health. The goals of the scientists and officials are the most noble: to help in the treatment of hereditary diseases But this, of course, is only the beginning.
To begin with, we will have to disappoint those who are dreaming about plugging their brains in the near future. Modern implants cannot make you a Terminator. And cut off your living arm for the sake of the ultra-modern prosthesis is also not worth it. Serial bionic prostheses are created to help people who have lost their limbs or were completely born without them. However, serious progress has been made. Prostheses can now connect to the human nervous system and receive commands from the brain. The accuracy of control is such that with the help of mechanical fingers you can, for example, tie shoelaces.
')
Modern cyborgs can easily engage in outdoor activities and sports: run, go hiking, ride bikes and even swim - the latest electronic prostheses are not afraid of water and dirt. And their components can be changed, as if in a constructor. One model of the foot is better suited for jogging, and another for walking.
Perhaps in the future, these prostheses will allow to set records that are not available to the average person. And the American engineer Hugh Herr claims that the native human legs will soon seem to be a relic of the past.
Herr himself lost both legs during his ascent into the mountains. Now the prosthesis of his design allows people not only to engage in mountaineering, but also to dance . Herr creates prostheses that can replace real legs in everything - including sensations. They are able to process the impulses sent by the nervous system and transform them into movements. According to the inventor himself, this differs little from the management of a real leg.
However, some went even further. For example, the Bao Research Group is working to recreate human skin. More precisely, while only sensations from it. Special sensors from nanotubes will transmit signals from touching the nervous system. And she already - to transmit them to the brain.
By the way, scientists have also learned how to grow high-grade artificial skin. But while it is used only for the treatment of burns. There is progress in the cultivation of human soft tissue. The next step is to make them not reject carbon-metal bones. What the final result will look like, you've already seen.
Of course, carbonate arms and legs alone are not enough to become a full-fledged cyborg. The next step is to implant your digital cameras instead of your eyes. And today, such experiments are also underway.
For example, a Canadian director Rob Spence a few years ago replaced his lost eye with a camera . Seeing it in the dark with its help is still impossible, because the camera is not connected to the owner’s brain in any way. All you can do with it is to record short first-person videos. Fortunately, the second eye of the director remained intact, and there is no need to change it yet.
But science has already learned to help people who have completely lost their sight.
One of the ways - wearing special glasses with cameras. The signal from these cameras takes a tiny chip mounted on the back of the retina. The image is not very clear, but it already allows blind people to navigate in space. The implantation of such devices has recently been conducted in a pair of UK clinics.
However, Australians from Monash University want to do without any operations at all. Here they create a system capable of transmitting a signal from the cameras directly to the brain using electrodes that are mounted on the back of the head. The technology is still in development, but in 2016, the authors want to get the first results. And we believe that they will succeed. After all, right now bionics is experiencing an unprecedented rise. Mechanical prostheses from fiction are transformed into the mainstream. Today they are worn not only by self-taught engineers, but even by actresses and photomodels. For example, the American model Rebecca Marin has been on the podium for many years with her bionic arm. Rebecca's goal is to prove that a mechanized body can also be beautiful. And looking at her, we are quite ready to believe it.
However, the wide distribution of bionic prostheses is only a matter of time. Much more interesting is the question of where to go next. Now bionics has learned to help people with disabilities, but the next step is the next step - the empowerment of healthy people. Work in this direction is no less active. For example, Canadian optometrist Garth Webb invented bionic lenses that tripled the limit of human vision. Installing these lenses will look no more difficult than regular laser eye surgery. But their capabilities are no match for what laser surgery gives. The tiny biomechanical camera is able to instantly change the focus from a very close distance to infinity and makes the patients vision much sharper, because it has three times higher resolution than the real eye. Dr. Webb hopes that the bionic lenses will go on sale in 2017, after passing all clinical trials.
But it's far from a fact that science should continue to try to improve a person by implanting extraneous glands. After all, there is a more logical way - editing the genome. With its help, scientists in the coming years could have cured many congenital diseases even at the embryo stage. This will open the way to more serious challenges - for example, defeating epidemics and aging. Well, and there, you see, it comes to letting fireballs out of their hands.
However, experiments with the human genome are still banned in many developed countries. But we are sure that progress cannot be stopped. For example, in April 2015, Chinese scientists conducted an operation to change the genome of the human embryo. More recently, editing of human DNA was approved by the UK Department of Health. The goals of the scientists and officials are the most noble: to help in the treatment of hereditary diseases But this, of course, is only the beginning.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/392445/
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