From the very moment we set foot on this planet, not literally but figuratively, we have been set on a path, the end to which cannot be seen nor perceived. It’s like staring out into the ocean unable to truly tell the end of it.
The path I am talking about is of science and the gift of technology it provides us humans. In the quest to always move forward, trying to gain mastery of our surroundings, we have come so far down this road that we can barely ascertain where we even began. It’s like a dream, the beginning to which we can never quite remember.
But mastery of the surrounding is not all that we seek, for we have been trying tirelessly to enhance our own capabilities. This might sound like a plot for a sci-fi movie where some mad scientists try to create the perfect human in an eerie underground laboratory, but that is not quite the case.
Many smart people from all around the globe are trying to make bionic humans a reality, one body part at a time. This might sound crazy and far-fetched but many body parts will soon be able to be replaced easily making life easier for millions of people. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Hands are one of the most important parts of our bodies. They help us do a number of really important things from helping us eat food to typing on a keyboard to letting us feel things.
Up until now, prosthetic hands were being used to fill the space where a person’s hand used to be, that allowed the person to pick objects but without really giving a sense of touch to the person.
This is going to change however as a team of researchers at the University of Chicago have developed prosthetic hands that send electrical signals to the brain. This stimulates certain areas of the brain that gives the person a sense of touch allowing him to discern what type of object he is holding without having to look at it.
Couple that with the ability to control the hands with thoughts and these bionic hands become almost as useful as the real ones. In the future, these bionic arms may get even more capabilities, like super strength!
Legs are another really important part of our bodies as they help us move from one place to another. Many different options exist today for amputees in the form of prosthetic legs, but all of them have a major drawback that they don’t have a nerve connection with the body and hence they can be difficult to use.
But, as scientists were able to do it with the hands, they have been able to do develop bionic legs that can be controlled with a person’s thoughts. In fact, Zac Vawter from America got installed with this bionic leg becoming the first person to do so. Check it out in the video below:
Restoring sight of an individual has been one of the most challenging things that scientists have been trying to do for a long time, mainly due to the reason that they were not sure exactly how the retina in our eyes, convert light into signals that the brain understands.
But in a major breakthrough, scientists have been able to to create artificial retinas that work like the real ones. This technology has been successfully tested in mice and monkeys currently but will soon make its way into humans, restoring sight completely.
Apart from restoring eyesight, the future may bring us even more capabilities like being able to record our surroundings and taking photos by just blinking. In a more distant future, we could even take on AR (alternative reality) right from our bionic eyes!
The pancreas has a really important job of producing insulin in order to regulate the body’s glucose or sugar level. Around 371 million people in the world suffer from diabetes and they have to constantly monitor their blood sugar or injecting themselves with insulin, which can be really inconvenient.
Therefore, scientists have come up with an ‘artificial pancreas’ that can inject insulin automatically into the body, along with monitoring the blood sugar levels.
This device works even when you are asleep and automatically adjusts itself according the to the glucose level in the blood.
Skin is what separates our innards from the outer world. If we are a bag of flesh and bones, skin serves the purpose of the bag. It protects us from a host of harmful microorganisms and from injuries, effectively acting as a first line of defence.
The body does a good job in healing damaged skin. In fact we are creating new skin all the time replacing the old one. But in case of serious injuries or accidents, it might not completely heal.
For this purpose, Zhenan Baohas from Standford has been working on a super sensitive, super flexible and self powering synthetic skin. It has organic transistors and also a series of elastic solar cells making it a really great alternative for natural skin.
This will be really important in the medical field as well as the cosmetic. One day people will just be able to get their skin replaced without anybody being able to notice it.
