ScienceToday

3. Prosthetic hands

People who suffered from accidents that left them without hands can be helped, because there are prosthetic hands, that can imitate human hands. With their help, people can grab things, hold hands and so on, but the sad part is that they lack the sense of touch.

A group of researchers from the University of Chicago created a prosthetic hand that can send electric signals straight to the brain. They tested the prototypes on monkeys, in order to see how animals’ brains reacted to the sense of touch. Researchers found out that monkeys had a reaction as they physically touched those objects.

Programming the same signals into artificial hands would give amputees replacement hands that will make them feel more like themselves.

4. Bionic legs

Just like prosthetic hands, bionic legs are a big improvement for amputees, but they lack the actual nerve connection with the body. This is the reason why people who have bionic legs have difficulty walking. Zac Vawter, a Founding Engineer at Kodiak Robotics, managed to create the first thought-controlled leg, which is actually a bionic limb that has the ability to take signals straight from his mind.

Even though this technology was already developed for arms, legs are far more challenging! Zac Vawter climbed over 100 floors of a Chicago skyscraper on his bionic leg, but scientists are still looking for improvements.

TAKEAWAY

Scientists will never give up on creating amazing inventions! Someday we will read about synthetic hearts and brains, but until then, we will hear a lot about the inventions above. With bionic body parts or not, I think we can all agree that the human body is amazing!