AMAZING NEW BODIES The human body is amazing It functions like a computer with our brain sending messages to different body parts allowing us to move and speak However just like a computer things can go wrong with the human body A part such as an arm or heart can become damaged or weak That’s where scientists step in New technologies have made it possible to repair and rebuild the human body and even make it stronger than it was before In the 1970s a television show called The Six Million Dollar Man was a smash hit In the show astronaut Steve Austin was badly injured when his experimental aircraft crashed His body was rebuilt with mechanical parts that gave him superhuman powers Many comic books movies and television shows have created characters like Steve Austin who develop extraordinary abilities through the use of technology These stories have always been science fiction or imaginary tales of future scientific possibilities However something called bionics is quickly turning science fiction into reality Technology is pushing the start button for bionic body solutions Bionics is a science that uses technology to create new working parts for living things Bio means life The ending onics comes from electronics The term bionics was first used in 1958 the same year the first pacemaker was put inside a human patient 4 BETTER THAN BEFORE UNDERSTANDING BIONICS
However most of today’s bionic bodies are not superhuman like Steve Austin’s Bionics simply allows people who need help to live better lives Bionics can help a child who has lost an arm play catch or a person who has gone blind to see shapes again The science of bionics includes advances in almost all parts of the human body both inside and out Bionic body parts can replace everything from arms and legs to eyes and ears to hearts and knee joints The way bionic body parts look and work is becoming more and more lifelike The world of bionics is changing all the time with constant advancements in technology such as robotics Bionic bodies are no longer science fiction They are here and now Iron Man is a comic book hero He may not be real but the technology behind him is quickly becoming a reality 5
ARTIFICIAL ARMS AND LEGS Leonardo da Vinci was a man ahead of his time He was an artist architect engineer and dreamer who lived 500 years ago He drew sketches for inventions that would not actually exist for hundreds of years such as the parachute armored tank and even a robot Da Vinci also drew a sketch of an artificial leg Today many of da Vinci’s dreams have become reality including artificial limbs which have improved countless lives worldwide New prosthetic legs are stronger and lighter A prosthesis is an artificial body part designed to replace a missing body part This could be a hand arm leg eye or ear French surgeon Ambroise Paré created artificial hands and arms for wounded soldiers in the late sixteenth century These were made of wood metal and leather Until recently artificial arms and legs were body-powered requiring body movements to control the prosthetic limb Making prosthetic limbs today is a mixture of art and science Lightweight plastics and strong lightweight metals such as titanium are molded to look and feel like real hands and feet Underneath the skin new electronic technology makes the limbs work like the real thing as well Myoelectric limbs use sensors placed in the body to send signals to an electric motor The motor then moves the limb The power knee for example is a motorized bionic knee that copies muscle power It provides lifting power for stairs and gently puts on the brakes for downhill slopes 6 WHAT IS A PROSTHETIC LIMB JUST LIKE THE REAL THING
Making a hand move is more difficult The i-limb is a prosthesis created by Touch Bionics It slips over the damaged part of an arm Small electrodes make contact with the skin and pick up electrical signals from the arm muscles The signals are sent to a small computer which tells the robotic hand to move Tiny motors in the thumb and each finger allow the artificial hand to grip like a real hand In the United States the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA is working on a robotic arm that can be moved by thought control A tiny device implanted inside a person’s brain sends signals to the arm telling it to move This prosthetic limb could also bring back the sense of touch by sending signals from the arm to the brain 7 techno PLANEt
