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Copying Antler-Structure Means Better Prosthetics
tygerstripes writes "The BBC reports that a breakthrough in prosthetic technology will allow titanium to be grafted directly to the bone and then protrude from the skin without risking infection. Research by the Centre for Bio-Medical Engineering, UCL and Stanmore Implants looks into the way that the structure and porosity of deers' antlers prevents infection from entering the break in the skin. Early trials and a fairly gruesome picture show that by mimicking this they can successfully provide amputees with more comfortable, permanent prosthetics. Combined with bionic muscle and other recent developments, we may be very close to fully-integrated prosthetics."
He said that the technology could be widely used for thumb and forefingers in a few years, and upper and lower limb replacements using this method could be in place in five years.
And after it gets thru all the proper channels, approval stages, etc in the USA we're talking the year 2050 at the earliest.
...the titanium is shed after mating-season and has to be reattached.
So, when can I get my titanium claws?
P.S. Figure out how to do this with adamantium for authenticity.
P.P.S. You may have to create adamntium first.
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Does that mean Obi Wan meant to say, "He's more John Deere now, than man"?
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Great. So there's been people sitting around for literally decades waiting for advances like this, and they're going to give them to people who are victims of recent terrorist bombings, because it's more mediagenic.
Sometimes it seems like everyone is evil.
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I can't wait for cyborgs to become a voting block, we'll have to have seperate sports leagues so they don't hurt us poor plain "biologics."
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well thats one way to get a leg up on the competion in the prostestics industry.
What the deuce?
Half man, half machine.
Why with that technology, I could escape these wretched harridans!
Go, cyborg!
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"And after it gets thru all the proper channels, approval stages, etc in the USA we're talking the year 2050 at the earliest."
Would you rather have another thalidomide baby?
that picture is gruseome?
Wow, the submitter must have the constitution of a nervous gerbil.
I think that picture is pretty frickin cool, and want to see more. Anyone have more links to examples of this?
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
The integration of Prosthetics w/o infection is a kinda holy grail of prosthetics, Now we will beable to make dataports that are merged witht he skin with ease. Also the ability to say make a prosthetic hand that uses the existing muscle in the forearm for movement and have it installed full time!!! Most prostetics have to be taken off at night tio give the skin some time to rest due to irritation and whatnot, now they can left on 24/7 and designed to be move like natural human body parts. Merge a little more robotics tech and in several more years primitive versions of "Ghost in the Shell" type cyborgs may become closer to reality.
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Great, I hope they get this to work because my doctor says I will probably need knee replacement surgery in about 10 years.
...welcome our new cyborg overlords
The concept that titanium fused with bone was discovered years ago when doctors thought "Hey lets use titanium cause its stronger then other materials and then went to remove it and found that the bone had fused with the titanium at a molecular level. In europe they have been doing this for years now but the FDA is slow to approve new technology and of course there is the problem with infection but what they don't tell you is that the risk of infection with a titanium graft that protrudes from the skin is more managable then the infection from the sores that develope where a traditional prosthetic is attached. Now it will be interesting when we replace fingers buy just puting a titanium piece in place of the bone and graft the muscle directly to it.
What I'm interested in is if there's already been a third kind of prosthetic movement control system invented.
My personal categorization of the different kinds of movement of prosthetic limbs:
1. On/off movement in any direction, like your limb was controlled by the digital joypad of a console.
2. Variable speed movement in any given direction, like your prosthetic limb was controlled by an analog joystick of a console.
3. Absolute positioning of your limb, like the new Nintendo Wii controller or a mouse.
Is there anything like my third category available? Together with this new grafting technology it would mean almost complete recovery for amputees.
I know that the human body doesn't track it's own limb positions in real-time, even in normal mammals, but human movement is still more like category 3 than the other two.
Is there something similar out already? I read an article about a guy who's arm prosthesis was directly attached to an arm nerve. Paraphrased: "I could move it as if it was real, I just had to think about moving my arm".
So any info on category 3 movement controls will be appreciated, interesting stuff.
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Would you rather let 100 people die from not releasing a cure? or let 1 die from releasing too fast? I think you would prefer 100 dead, others might disagree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fda#Regarding_incenti ve_to_delay_approval_of_new_drugs
um... we already have knee replacement. did you mean that you want your kneecaps replaced, and protruding through the skin? built-in kneepads? exactly how much kneeling do you do?