Month: October 2013

In a breakthrough for prosthetics, a Chicago team has developed a robotic leg that is wired directly to the patient’s brain, allowing him to control the mechanism with his thoughts alone:

To accomplish this, surgeons redirected the nerves that previously controlled some of the man’s lower-leg muscles so that they would cause muscles in his thigh to contract in a technique called targeted muscle reinnervation. They then used sensors embedded in the robotic leg to measure the electrical pulses created by both the reinnervated muscle contractions and the existing thigh muscles. When the surgeons combined this information with additional data from the sensors, the man was able to use the leg more accurately than when attempting to control the leg with its sensors alone, the scientists report. They hope that other people with missing limbs will be able to use the technology within the next three to five years.

Derek Mead looks ahead to the next likely innovation:

Integrating a prosthetic directly into a patient’s nervous system would seem to be the answer. Rather than learning how to use one’s robo hand, it could be controlled just as directly as your flesh-and-bone models. The concept has been proven before; research earlier this year showed that a paralyzed person could control robot limbs with her thoughts, but actually deploying it in a prosthetic—especially one as challenging as a lower leg—is even harder. So far, the proof of concept appears to be working (walking?) well, and [lead researcher Levi] Hargrove’s team hopes to have it ready for broader use within a few years.

Update from a reader:

I’m a biomedical engineer who does this type of work every day. I don’t mean to throw cold water on the RIC prosthetic, but targeted reinnervation has been a tested and proven method for controlling prosthetics for almost a decade now. That’s not to say doing it in the leg isn’t an amazing piece of biomedical engineering, and I applaud everything Dr. Kuiken has done, from Jesse’s Arm to this leg work.

But the second problem with this bit of media over-hype is to say the prosthetic is “wired directly” to the brain. That is not the case. It is connected to already existing nerves in the leg (or for arm prosthetics, they connect it to arm nerves they surgically relocate to the pectoral muscle). To say that his prosthetic is “wired directly” to the brain would be like saying my smartphone is directly connected to dish.andrewsullivan.com, without mentioning that the Internet is involved. Directly interpreting brain neural output and using that to accurately control prosthetics is still far, far in the future.

If we don’t clean up our space junk, we might be cut off from the rest of the universe:

NASA claims that more than 500,000 pieces of debris, ranging from the size of a marble to eight tons, are in orbit. These scattered fragments travel at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. In the forthcoming movie Gravity, a piece of satellite debris destroys a shuttle, but even much smaller objects such as chips of paint could damage a satellite, space station, or a spacecraft carrying astronauts. A 2009 study performed by all the major space agencies – including ESA, NASA, and Roscosmos – revealed that even if no further space launches occur, the amount of orbital debris will continue to increase. More than simply littering Earth’s low orbits, we would be hindering our ability to safely travel beyond it.

The European Space Agency’s Clean Space Initiative is working on a solution, but it won’t be an quick or easy:

The only way to preserve key orbits is to remove the debris, like picking up scraps of refuse blowing down a highway. … “It’s an extremely challenging mission,” says Luisa Innocenti, the head of the Clean Space Office. “Getting close to the debris is dangerous because you need to maneuver around the uncontrolled object.” This means developing a guidance and navigation control system where chasers stay close to the targeted debris. A capturing mechanism – a big net, a harpoon, a robotic arm, or a giant tentacle that, amid the stars, would clamp down on the object – would collect the debris and return it to Earth. The goal is to have a mission in 2022.

That “Breaking Dead” mashup we linked to yesterday (and embedded above) is closer to reality than you think:

Krokodil, a highly addictive designer drug that aggressively eats through flesh, has reportedly arrived in the United States. A Phoenix CBS affiliate revealed [last] week that two cases involving krokodil had been phoned into a local poison control center and quoted one of the center’s medical directors, Dr. Frank LoVecchio, saying he and his colleagues were “extremely frightened.”

Details of what the drug does to you:

Krokodil, technically known as Desomorphine, has a similar effect to heroin, but is significantly cheaper and easier to make. In the last few years, it’s been wreaking severe havoc on the bodies and lives of Russian youth. The drug earned its nickname—the Russian word for crocodile—because of the ghastly side effects it has on the human body. Wherever the drug is injected, the skin turns green and scaly, showing symptoms of gangrene. In severe cases, the skin rots away completely revealing the bone beneath. Other permanent effects of the drug include speech impediments and erratic movement. Rotting flesh, jerky movements, and speech troubles have prompted media outlets to tag krokodil the “zombie drug.”

According to Time, the average user of krokodil only lives two or three years, and “the few who manage to quit usually come away disfigured.” Quitting is its own nasty business. Heroin withdrawal symptoms last about a week; symptoms for krokodil withdrawal can last over a month.

Nigerian writer Kola Tubosun wonders how long it will take major literary awards to recognize works in new media:

For anyone interested in literature, and literary development, this is a good time to be alive, not just because of the quality of output and the zeal of the participants, but also because of the presence of new media and the dynamism it has allowed for the production of new forms, and new ways of expression. … I hope, of course, that new media eventually gets its pride of place in the mainstream of literary appraisal. It already does well in consumption and reach. Until the Booker, the NLNG, the Orange, or any other major prize rewards someone whose platform is mainly online, then we haven’t reached there yet.

I don’t advocate for the death of the book, just like inventors of the automobile didn’t go ahead and shoot all the horses. But judges of prizes need to start looking at the quality of production in the new media, and begin to pay attention to them. It is the future. We may as well get used to it.

On a related note, Bill Wyman believes Bob Dylan should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature:

[His] fierce and uncompromising poet whose writing, 50 years on, still crackles with relevance. Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience. His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.

But to Zach Schonfeld, Dylan is more performer than poet:

Dylan’s songs are far more than the content of the lyric booklets that accompany his releases; his artistry is rather seamlessly wedded to his (now almost incomprehensibly) gravelly voice and loooong, streetched-out delivery. Think of those iconic choruses – “Iiii-diot wiiind,” “Like a roooo-lling stone,” “Stuuuu-ck-in-siiide-of-Mooo-bile-with-the-Memphis-Bluuuues-again” – and now try to imagine them as standalone poetry, without the melodies and vocal inflections and musical color. Doesn’t work. Tarantula aside, Bob Dylan hasn’t followed Leonard Cohen’s path in supplementing his records with books of poetry, and to award him the Nobel would be to ignore the power of the medium he has made his life’s work.