Lifeboat Foundation

A new type of energy-generating synthetic skin could create more affordable prosthetic limbs and robots capable of mimicking the sense of touch, scientists say.

In an early-view paper published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Robotics, researchers from the University of Glasgow describe how a robotic hand wrapped in their flexible solar skin is capable of interacting with objects without using dedicated and expensive touch sensors.

Continue reading “Energy-generating synthetic skin for affordable prosthetic limbs and touch-sensitive robots” »

Henrik shows off his bionic arm! 😃

Henrik shows how he performs everyday tasks with a bionic arm 😮 🦾.

This bionic contact lens doubles as a display.

Credit: UWTV.

Finger prosthetics We really are living in the future, wow GIFs | Search for More wow GIFs on www.GIF-VIF.com.

A material that mimics human skin in strength, stretchability and sensitivity could be used to collect biological data in real time. Electronic skin, or e-skin, may play an important role in next-generation prosthetics, personalized medicine, soft robotics and artificial intelligence.

“The ideal e-skin will mimic the many natural functions of human skin, such as sensing temperature and touch, accurately and in real time,” says KAUST postdoc Yichen Cai. However, making suitably flexible electronics that can perform such delicate tasks while also enduring the bumps and scrapes of everyday life is challenging, and each material involved must be carefully engineered.

Most e-skins are made by layering an active nanomaterial (the sensor) on a stretchy surface that attaches to human skin. However, the connection between these layers is often too weak, which reduces the durability and sensitivity of the material; alternatively, if it is too strong, flexibility becomes limited, making it more likely to crack and break the circuit.

Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador interviews Dr. Hugh Herr, Associate Professor MIT Media Lab and head of the Biomechatronics group, @MIT Media Lab.

Ira Pastor comments:

Continue reading “Extreme Bionics: Sculpting Human Physiology” »

The chip could potentially be used to power drones, robotics, smart watches, and bionic implants.

Like walking and breathing and could one day allow people to control prosthetics simply by thinking…

The US Army is funding a project that could lead to brain-machine interfaces. It includes an algorithm capable of isolating brain signals and linking them to specific behaviors such as walking and breathing.

Continue reading “Army-funded algorithm decodes brain signals responsible for behaviors” »

Careful, you may end up with mini cyborgs!

“The closer we come to his goal, the more likely we will get a brain that is capable of sentience and of feeling pain, agony and distress,” Christof Koch, chief scientist and president of the Allen Brain Institute, told the NYT.

The human brain is so complex that scientists are still guessing at many aspects of how it works. That’s the appeal of mini-brains — they’re comparatively simple balls of neurons that simulate some characteristics of full brains but which barely scratch the surface of their capabilities. But this new study, published Thursday in the journal Cell, suggests that the mini-brains could be more complex than previously believed.

Continue reading “Scientists Grew Tiny Human Brains and Hooked Them up to Robots” »