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Bionic leg controlled only with brain power
CHICAGO - Researchers have come up with new technology that may one day help amputee war veterans: an artificial leg that reads brain signals, and it's already being tested out.
The bionic leg that can read your mind. When Zac Vawter wants to take a step, he thinks it and it happens.
"There's nothing special about it in the sense of what I've had to learn. I can just get up from a chair and walk," said Vawter.
He lost his leg in a motorcycling accident, but his brain is still sending commands to a leg that isn't there. The prosthetic has electrodes to read signals in his thigh, and a computer to process them and a mechanical leg to execute them.
On a monitor is a readout of the signals Vawter's leg is getting from his brain, when he thinks about moving.
Over time, a team of doctors and designers led by Dr. Levi Hargrove taught the computer which signals mean what.
"We can figure out using our pattern recognition if he was trying to move his ankle. So knee, ankle, doesn't matter. We learn the pattern and then we tell the bionic leg how to move," said Dr. Hargrove.
The result?
"With this leg, it's, brings me right back to, basically in terms of interacting with stairs, right back to not having an amputation," said Vawter.
To prove it, Vawter climbed the stairs of one of the tallest buildings in America: the Willis Tower in Chicago.
It is kind of noisy and it's not flawless, but the designers say they are working on improvements, maybe even the ability to run. In three to five years, doctors hope to make these legs available to patients, including over 1,000 amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The wounded warriors, they've given so much, and anything we can do to help them, do a little bit better or a lot better, that's what we're trying to do," said Dr. Hargrove.
But for now, the bionic leg is still in the lab, in the test phase.
The U.S. Army is supporting the project with an $8 million grant.
Source: http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/23/zac-vawter-tests-out-bionic-leg/4183617/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.