New Bionic Hand in Action!

I knew that artificial limbs were really taking great (excuse the pun) strides, however I had never seen this hand in action. The quickness and range of motion is truly amazing. Check out the short video of it in action.

amputees can now "feel" with new limbs

From AFP via Boing Boing

I have often said and felt that a subset of science fiction is stories about people with damage due to accident, disease or defect who by one mode or another are "enhanced" to live a normal or above normal lives. like, say Cyborg (better known to tv views as the six million dollar man) Flowers for Algernon, The Ship Who Sang, Mars, The Demolished Man, Kiln People and so on. These stories ring a bit truer for me than others maybe but I really think a blending of the human body with augmentations of one type or another has a very real future. One very real subset of this is advancements in bio augmentation hardware and prosthetics. The closer they get to true "bionics" the hard its going to be to tell where the "original" ends and the "repair" begins.

In the article listed here, advancements in the field of sensing are discussed. Some researchers have developed a technique of rerouting nerves from amputated limbs to regain some sense of touch etc. The scientists doing the research suggest their success in reviving such specific sensation identified with missing limbs could lead to establishing nervous system feedback in prosthetic devices like artificial hands, arms, feet and legs. In a very real sense, this research could lead to people having normal sensations through their replacement limbs. Very science ficiony if I do say so myself.