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Bionic Cat Gets World's First Implant Paws
Several readers send in the news of Oscar, the first bionic cat, whose hind paws got cut off in a harvester accident. In a world's-first operation, a neurosurgeon has now given him exoprosthetic paws that are implanted directly into his leg bones. The BBC artlcle has a video captured just after the operation, and PopSci has an apparently later one in which Oscar is walking and running almost completely normally.
Big deal, they have been grafting lasers onto sharks for years now.
After all, everyone deserves a hot meal.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Does this mean that the kitty gets adamantium claws next?
they should have replaced his paws with rabbit feet, that way he might be luckier next time he meets farm machinery.
Nullius in verba
They should have given him can opener paws so he could open his own tuna.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
You know this is inevitable.
Also, something can be 'completely normal' or 'almost normal', but not 'almost completely normal'
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
We have the technology.
Those implants look a lot like Chell's heel springs. (image)
bionic adj 1: of or relating to bionics 2: having particular physiological functions augmented or replaced by electronic or electromechanical components So, not a bionic cat. A prosthesisic cat.
The bionic cat in the video looks like it is running in slow motion, but we all know it is running at 60mph.
Fight Spammers!
http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/7296/darthcat.jpg
Well... is obvius.
I guess the press can't interview him. But I was just wondering if he accepted his new paws, or tried to bite them off? I mean, even some humans have some problems with new limbs, and they can understand what is going on.
What is going on in that cat's head right now?
Any cat psychologists on Slashdot?
"WTF!?!?! Where the hell did these come from!?!?! Oh, well, at least I can walk again."
"Hey, you, Walks-on-two-Legs! Where's my dinner! A tin of tuna would be a nice change from that dry stuff!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Damn strait, we should be giving those malaria victims prosthetic feet instead!
I really hope any other replies skip the graphic detail of their imaginings.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
That cat needs to lose another 20 ounces, OR IT'LL NEVER BE PRETTY!
It pays to be adorable....
... because their government(s) are pieces of shit and/or they have no real resources.
It sucks, yes. But it's no reason for the rest of the world to drop everything and rush to fix their problems for them.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I don't know about anyone else, but this story really cheered me up. +1 to whatever admin approved it, thank you. You cheered up an otherwise crappy day with stories of kitty happyness. :) (....23 year old straight male.... NOT 80 year old lady)
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Do Africans pay taxes to the UK? Then shut the fuck up.
Is it bad that I think this cat looks cooler than one which still has all of its original limbs? I suppose PETA would go crazy if people started having this done to animals which had not been in "accidents".
Fear is the mind killer.
Why not skip the complicated and expensive surgery and go straight for the duct tape?
whose hind paws got cut off in a harvester accident
can bionic ears be too far behind now?
i wonder if the treatment included retraining the cat on burying its business in the cat box.
I don't really understand why they needed to put the cat under to place the new legs onto the rods, then the cat walked and even jumped onto a pack of toilet paper.
Same reason you put a cat under to clean its teeth. Messing around with a cat's legs while it's awake is likely to cost you a few fingers.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Bill Gates, scourge of slashdotters everywhere, has donated billions towards fighting malaria. I don't think there is much more we could do to help -- if the Gates Foundation's $60 billion can't solve the problem, then nothing can.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Suddenly, it's not such a good time to be a mouse anymore!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Practice on a hot dog first!" -- Family Guy
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Bionic = Biological + Electronic. Where's the electronic part of all this?
The mice arranged to a bell included in the specification. Cunning little buggers.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Katt Williams would say this cat's in touch with his star playa!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qlNEmpxQxI (NSFW - wear headphones)
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Given:
Oscar was struck by the combine harvester whilst dozing in the sun.
I think the first order of business should have been some hearing aids.
What happened to the "You're a kitty!" tag? I think it's very appropriate. For those who haven't seen it, XKCD's "Cat Proximity" http://xkcd.com/231/
That's a good amputee-cat video, but there is no running. There's accelerated walking, call it scampering if you want, but it's not running.
You can't take the sky from me...
They really should have gone with a faux-wood finish on those prostheses.
Cats in a farming environment generally seem to be considered disposable and people who grew up on farms rarely seem to be cat lovers.
Cats apparently like to hang out and hide in fields of grain, and after any harvesting/mowing operation you end up with a lot of cut grain and a field full of legless cats.
My father once described having the job as a kid of going out into the field with the .22 rifle he got for his birthday and having to shoot all the maimed cats to put them out of their misery.
So this is one damn lucky cat.
G.
So you are saying no one or no creature should ever receive medical treatment becasue people are dying elsewhere? Sound logic.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Sounds like we have a new lolcat meme.
Finally met his match!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
One glance at the picture in the article and it's clear that what we be dealin with be a Pirate cat. And if Pirate Cat says he be bionic, he be bionic. You can tell im different, if ye don't be valuin yer pretty face. Yar har har!
The enemies of Democracy are
have none of you posted a LOLCat caption of this bionic basement kitty?!
DDT probably could, but no one is quite sure what that would to their environment over there so no one is willing to give it a shot. People forget that malaria was a problem in the Americas too until the mosquito population was decimated by pesticides massively slowing the infection rate; combined with rapid quarantine and treatment of infected individuals it all but eliminated malaria from two continents.
Oscar has poodle paws!
Or maybe paddle paws?
blah, blah, blah...
Buzz off.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
A friend of mine has a dog that is missing one of its back legs. The dog runs around at full speed, fetches the ball and plays with other dogs. Unless you look really closely, if your first sight of the dog was it playing and running around, you'd never notice that it was missing a leg.
I mean, even some humans have some problems with new limbs
Some humans don't even like the ones they have...
Just as a point of interest, there were a series of experiments (honest to goodness animal cruelty WITHOUT benefit) to test the pain tolerance of various animals. One of the results of the experiment was that the scientist concluded that cats did not feel pain. This was later proven to be false, but because cats evolved as a unique mix of predators/prey (they're not the alpha carnivore) and as a solitary creature, there was no benefit to showing external signs of pain. In fact, it could put them at risk, so cats will actively hide it.
Now if you step on a cat's tail, it'll freak out, so there's none of that kind of pain going on, but cats are really good at hiding chronic pain, so simply because the cats are good at hiding pain doesn't mean that these implants are pain free.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
"hundreds of people died of Malaria."
Reflecting the adult choices made in their societies. Nothing of value was lost, and I'm bored with decades of being bombarded
about the fate of humans not in my society who make bad decisions and die in droves. Fuck 'em.
Mankind is more advanced by prostheticat than by saving people from natural selection.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
DDT is still used today to combat malaria. It's just not indiscriminately carpet-bombed all of the place like it was in the '50s.
The through-the-skin interface is the real story
Huge implications if this can be approved for human use.
Getting something to anchor postively to the remaining bone and go through the skin, yet be sealed, so its not a huge source of infection would be a big big deal.
Getting a prosthesis to properly fit into a stump has always been hard, and expensive, and doesn't even work that great when its executed perfectly.
It often also being a source of lifelong discomfort, skin irritation, and annoyance.
What I'd envision is a permanent bone-interface protruding and few inches or so, with a strong locking mechanical interface on the other side, so that the user can tailor the prosthesis to the occasion
I don't really understand why they needed to put the cat under to place the new legs onto the rods
Try giving a cat a pill and you'll understand. It has to do with sharp teeth and claws. I have scars to show for it.
Free Martian Whores!
Which strait, and why do you want to damn it? Ot did you really want to dam it and there's just a typo because the m and n are close together?
Free Martian Whores!
and millions of people wasted time reading /.
No wonder you posted as anonymous coward.
Try giving a cat a pill and you'll understand. It has to do with sharp teeth and claws. I have scars to show for it.
That is why you find a compounding pharmacy and get liquid meds done.
I have 2 cats on heart meds (Yes, Heart Meds - Atenalol) and one gets meds once a day and the other twice a day. If I had to do pills, they'd probably be passed on since they'd have spit the meds out part of the time. They can't do that with tuna flavored liquid meds.
UPS Sucks
I can witness it personally...
50 days ago, one of my two cats (both aged 8 months old at the time - they are brothers) was hit by a car. Cadfael (that's his name - he's a male with all his "attributes" and I have no intention to change that) crawled to our neighbour's doors (100 meters away) in spite of his having a broken basin on one side and a broken leg on the other!
After a heavy-duty surgery and a 3-week antibiotic-based post-operation treatment (causing diarrhea in the process) (along with an enforced "no you won't go outside" policy), the X-ray showed that he was close to fully recover from both his leg and pelvis injury - and he doesn't have diarrhea anymore. As of today, he just runs and jumps like nothing happened!
Having witnessed that blitz of a recovery, I surmise that cats are able to "consume" their supposedly nine lives by fractions... He had his accident not even a month and a half ago!
Nice, but where, *where* are the shoulder-mounted rocket launchers and laser eyes? I'm *this close* to realizing my dreams of weaponizing cats and taking over the world! *sigh* Bionic animals just ain't what they used to be...
They grafted the implants directly into the bone and fused the skin around them. When are we going to see this technology come to human prosthetics? If I lose my arm in a car accident, I don't want a fake arm attached to my stump with a suction cup, I want a universal mount embedded in what is left of my arm bones! I want to be able to adapt the attachments for whatever job I need (hand, grinder, chainsaw, soldering iron) using a quick release mechanism.
Should.. I don't *think* that a cat's righting reflex ability has anything to do with the shape of it's lower legs.
bart > cat food
cat: cannot open food
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
I was involved with a company who did this work on a Siberian Husky in 2007. CBS News in Colorado: http://www.cbs4denver.com/video/?id=28412@kcnc.dayport.com Triumph's website: http://triumphthedog.net/
Better than with no hands at all!
Free Martian Whores!
>I don't really understand why they needed to put the cat under to place the new legs onto the rods, then the cat walked and even jumped onto a pack of toilet paper.
They were taking Xrays to confirm the implants were ready. This requires the legs to be absolutely still and in a most-likely unnatural position. Many cats instinctively do not like people messing with their back legs. Not quite sure why, though. I have been around cats all my life, and even the most lovable and forgiving cats still have that aversion to some extent.
I for one welcome our new bionic feline overlords.
There's a pretty big difference between spraying DDT on interior surfaces (to kill misquotes that are entering the home) and using it on breeding grounds (to massively reduce the mosquito population). Yes, killing the bugs that enter homes is nice, and probably reduces infection rates, but destroying the breeding population is the proven way to (nearly) eradicate malaria.
You know Slashdot culture is bad when people feel the need to disclaim their happiness by saying they're not gay or a woman.
Somewhat off-topic (but the story is about cat surgery, so...), over the past year, a cyst/tumor started to grow on my cat's forehead. When it grew to about 1.5cm diam., the vet said it would keep growing, eventually into her eye, if it wasn't removed. She quoted $850 for the surgery, much of it the cost of anesthesia and monitoring. After fretting over it for some weeks, and draining it every few days (which the vet said I'd have to do for the rest of her life without the surgery) to keep the pressure down and make it grow slower, I had an idea. Cat fur is very loose and pliable, so I pulled the tumor away from her skull, formed it into a kind of ball, and tied a rubber band very tightly around the base to cut off the circulation. (I don't think this caused her any pain; she was purring during the whole procedure.) Within a week and a half it dried up and shrank to the size of a raisin. The skin just under the rubber band fused together, and last week, about 6 weeks later, the tumor fell off by itself (rubber band still attached). Now there is just a tiny reddish spot where the tumor used to be. I thought that perhaps I should patent my "method to cure cat skin tumors with a rubber band", but upon researching it, I found that apparently Hippocrates suggested this technique in 460 BC.
Heck, I had a cat who was raised like crap, neglected and mistreated by his owner and his owner's roommates. Was ridiculously skittish and neurotic (for a cat!) and definitely didn't like having his feet touched. By the time he'd been my cat for a year, I could trim his nails with no problems.
Still, I wouldn't blame anyone for putting a cat under for just about any medical procedure even if it's just attaching prosthetics to leg-posts.
The enemies of Democracy are
Either that or cheap, easily manufactured mosquito nets, which have no environmental impact...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't think this caused her any pain; she was purring during the whole procedure.
FYI, domestic cats purr when in pain or in distress.
hundreds of people died of Malaria.
Yeah, because their cats can't catch and kill all the mosquitoes, they can't jump high enough. With rocket paws though...
We have now redefined the term "bionic" down to the point where rubber tipped rods screwed into a bone is the same as The Six Million Dollar Man. Typical journalistic nonsense. They missed the real story being the advance in the skin-to-prosthesis interface, and jazzed it up with some fancy sounding terms...which they used incorrectly.
That is also exactly how they castrate livestock. Gross I know.
Well, all I can say is that she didn't flinch or seem bothered by it, and once in place she didn't try to scratch it off or anything. This contrasts to her yowling when I - and the vet - poked the tiny hole to drain her.
do cats pay taxes in the UK? no really.
Grab the cat, tip his head back then stuff pill in throat.
Simple enough.
to kill misquotes that are entering the home
It does that? DDT is an inaccuracide?
In the BBC video, around 1:10, the vet holds up a roll of black duct tape and proceeds to duct tape the original painstakingly manufactured prostheses because "I can't put brown feet on a black cat." I like the newer ones in PopSci better, although they don't quite match his colour scheme. I wonder if he licks them and wonders why he doesn't have claws or true sensation on his back feet any more?
Nope, bare hands. It needs to be seen to be believed. I can't do it, even my immensely placid older cat won't tolerate that crap from me, but he gives up resisting when it's her.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.