Homo bionics – bionic man

A person according to GOST
Xakep OnlineWould you like to fly over cars in one jump, notice enemies at a distance of several kilometers and bend steel beams with your hands?

We must assume that yes, but, alas, this is unrealistic. It's unrealistic so far...

Bionics, an applied science that studies the possibility of combining living organisms and technical devices, is developing very rapidly today. Thanks to the latest prostheses and implants, improved integration with the nervous system, as well as compact but powerful energy sources, a person will be able to completely transform. After all, the potential of bionics is truly limitless…

The desire to possess abilities that surpass those that nature has given us sits deep inside every person – this will be confirmed by any fitness trainer or plastic surgeon. Our bodies have an incredible ability to adapt, but there are things that they cannot do. For example, we do not know how to talk to those who are out of earshot, we are not able to fly, and not all of us can open a bottle of wine with our bare hands. That's why we need phones, planes and corkscrews. To compensate for their imperfection, people have long used various "external" devices, but with the development of science, the tools gradually decreased and became closer to us.

In addition, everyone knows that if something happens to his body, doctors will carry out "repairs" using the most modern medical technologies.

If we put these two simple concepts together, we can get an idea of the next step in human evolution. In the future, doctors will not only be able to restore "damaged" or "out of order" organisms, they will begin to actively improve people, make them stronger and faster than nature has managed. This is the essence of bionics, and today we are on the threshold of the emergence of a new type of man. Perhaps one of us will become one…

One of the many examples illustrating the process of transformation of "external" tools into "internal" and the transition from repair to replacement is the eye. Once upon a time, if a person's eyesight deteriorated, he had to put up with it. Then glasses were invented, which allowed almost anyone to regain the coveted "unit". Then there were contact lenses, and a little later, laser correction technology appeared, which allows you to physically eliminate defects in the organs of vision.

However, all this is, in fact, a repair. At the same time, we have been improving our optical "instruments" for many centuries: telescopes appeared in the XVII century, so today bionics is learning to improve vision, and, as they say, "on the spot" – directly inside the eye. Some of the most amazing developments in this field are carried out at the University of Washington, where Babak Parviz, associate professor of Electrical Engineering, places various sensors and electrical circuits directly on contact lenses. The purpose of this work is to produce multifunctional lenses that will not only help to see, but also create an "improved" reality, the user of which will be able to zoom in, access GPS data and other sources of information. When will such lenses get into one of the reviews of our magazine?

"Most likely not in the next ten years, but undoubtedly during our lifetime," says Parviz. However, if the appearance of a commercial sample of this system still has to wait, then you can improve your eyes right now. The famous American golfer Tiger Woods resorted to laser surgery and now sees better than most "ordinary" people.

When Woods upgraded his eyes, many other golfers wanted to follow his example, thereby confirming one of the main principles of bionics: "If you're not good enough, fix it!" However, there are places where superiority over an opponent is much more important than on the golf course. We're talking about the battlefield. That is why British soldiers are regularly sent to the Moorfield Special Eye Hospital to improve their eyesight. They joke that after the procedures, the fighters begin to see so well that they no longer need optical sights, and although it sounds funny, the idea itself clearly deserves attention.

The eyes are not the only organs of a soldier that can be improved. The US Army is a leader in the development of bionic limbs. Previously, fighters who lost an arm or leg were evacuated and fired, but soon they will be supplied with bioprostheses and returned to service. "We want the decision to retire or stay in the army to be made by the soldier himself, not by his injury," says Jen Walker of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense (DARPA).

Most often, military personnel lose their legs. Today, leg prostheses have become unimaginably complex. The C-Leg model of the German company Otto Bock and the Rheo Knee of the Icelandic company Ossur use hydraulic drives, motors, microprocessors and intelligent software, thanks to which these devices allow owners to walk comfortably on different surfaces.

The main disadvantage of such prostheses is their "external" character. That is, the user has to wear them like clothes, and after a while they inevitably wear out and become very uncomfortable. And here bionics again offers a way out – osseointegration: the fusion of an artificial module and bone. Gordon Blann of University College London is one of the leading researchers in this field. In his laboratory, he makes porous titanium implants that effectively fuse with skin, muscles and bone tissue, becoming an integral part of the host's body as a result.

But if everything is relatively simple with the hips and shins, then things are much more complicated with the feet. One of the existing solutions is PowerFoot One. This system, created with the financial participation of the US Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), uses sophisticated hydraulics to simulate the basic positions that the foot takes when a person walks, stops, turns or dances. Of course, PowerFoot One is still far from a real foot, but the work does not stop…

"In the future, it will be possible to create artificial body parts that are superior to natural ones," says Hugh Herr, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose laboratory invented PowerFoot One. Another interesting development is the Cheetah Flex–Foot sports prosthesis, which became widely known thanks to the story of Oscar Pistorius, the famous athlete with amputated legs. The International Athletics Federation suspended Pistorius from competing with ordinary competitors, considering that the carbon J-shaped "legs" provide an unreasonable advantage to the runner, since, working like springs, they accumulate energy when compressed and give out 90% of this energy when straightened. It sounds convincing, but sports officials should have known that a normal human leg returns more than 200% of energy…

"Artificial limbs can perform certain tasks qualitatively for short periods of time," says Pete Moore, author of a bionics study called "Improving Myself," "however, they cannot imitate all the functions of their natural counterparts, they are short–lived, and also are not capable of regeneration."

Professor Andy May, who is not only a scientist, but also a columnist for The Guardian newspaper, as well as an expert on technology and culture, adds: "Bionic systems are very specific. Pistorius can run fast on his prosthetics, but it's not easy for him to stand on them without support." What if they break? Agree, we rarely realize how universal our natural body parts are, as well as the fact that our body is able to "fix" them independently.

However, there is no need to despair – bionic organs are still at the initial stage of development. The first mobile phones were also designed exclusively for making calls, and modern models serve us as notebooks, diaries, cameras, navigators and much more. If the developers have managed to make multifunctional mobile phones, then for sure they will be able to do the same in the case of artificial limbs.

The main task is to determine all the functions of a real leg and translate them into an artificial one. Many bionic devices, including Flex-Foot and PowerFoot One, are not yet similar to their natural prototypes, but soon this problem will be solved thanks to artificial skin. For example, the i-LIMB Hand prosthesis, created by Touch Bionics, is covered with a surprisingly natural imitation of skin. The inventor of the i-LIMB, David Gau, believes that artificial body parts will one day surpass the real ones in their aesthetic qualities. And indeed, who knows what exactly we will consider attractive in the future…

Today there are many men who like silicone breasts, and perhaps in a few years they will extol the virtues of artificial legs, arms, lymph glands and brains. By the way, many military men with bionic prostheses prefer not to hide them and look like a Terminator. For such "aesthetes" Touch Bionics offers i-LIMB in a transparent case. And this makes sense: who do you think will scare the enemy more on the battlefield – a man coming at him or a cyborg?

Despite the existence of i-LIMB, the technology of creating artificial hands until recently lagged significantly behind developments in the field of leg prostheses. But that was before the advent of the ultra-modern bionic arm Luke Arm, created by Michael Goldfarb from Vanderbilt University and Deka Research. Luke Arm is named after the famous amputee Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. Despite the fact that the Luke Arm does not have a built-in lightsaber, it is ten times stronger than similar models, because instead of batteries and electric motors, it is equipped with a miniature rocket engine powered by hydrogen peroxide. The control is based on the technology of muscular reinnervation, which allows the patient to give mental commands to the prosthesis.

Artificial limbs are great news for those who have lost a natural body part, but why not give superpowers to healthy people? For this purpose, exoskeletons were invented – devices that increase the strength and endurance of the user.

The Japanese corporation Cyberdyne bears the same name as the company that started nuclear Armageddon and set an army of killer robots on people in the Terminator films (we hope that such a coincidence is not a cause for concern). Cyberdyne has created a HAL exoskeleton for elderly Japanese farmers who, due to their age, cannot cultivate their fields on their own. But this is in peace-loving Japan, and in the USA, Sarcos and Raytheon have developed an exoskeleton that allows the owner to lift objects weighing up to 95 kilograms, and do it again and again until the battery charge is depleted (and this is still a serious problem for such systems).

The leader is Berkeley Bionics, whose HULC device was put into production this year. HULC is a fully functional exoskeleton for the lower extremities, giving the user the ability to carry the same 95 kilograms of cargo.

All these gadgets are great, but among the tasks that arise when trying to simulate the functions of human organs, the most difficult is the creation of an effective control system. A steering wheel was invented for cars, a joystick for computer games, but what about an arm or a leg? Until recently, various solutions based on the joystick were used everywhere, but now two new promising approaches have appeared. In the first case, the patient moves various muscles and thus "tells" the bionic components what they should do. In the second, the control is carried out directly – mentally.

The first method is applied in i-LIMB. Here's how it works: a person strains certain muscles; sensors connected to them perceive electrical signals that cause muscle tissue to contract (myoelectric impulses, to call a spade a spade); and sensors, in turn, transmit commands to prostheses. A more advanced version of this system is being developed in the laboratory of Todd Quicken at the Chicago Institute of Rehabilitation and is called "directed muscle reinnervation".

Kuiken's approach involves the use of a person's own nervous system: the nerves that went to the amputated limbs before the injury are "connected" to the chest muscles. Because these nerves previously controlled the arm, the brain continues to think that they are still doing the same thing. Well, since the chest muscles are designed to move a lot, it is easier for sensors to receive myoelectric impulses from them. So, when the brain activates a certain nerve, the chest muscles contract and send a distinct electrical signal to the prostheses. "I just think about how I move my arm, and it listens to me," says one of Kuiken's patients, who was fitted with Luke Arm.

However, the main goal of such research is to create a neurocomputer interface (NCI), the first prototypes of which are already being tested on humans. BrainGate implants manufactured by Cyberkinetics help several patients control their limbs with the power of thought. Kevin Warwick clearly proved the viability of this concept by taking control of a robotic arm using a BrainGate implant connected to the nervous system.

And since the brain is now able to give commands to bionic organs, it would be nice if this connection had a two-way character. Then we would not only be able to order the limbs to move faster or slower, turn left and right, but also receive signals going in the opposite direction. This would allow you to "feel" the surface under your feet and know when to stop squeezing your hand in a handshake.

Transmitting impulses to the brain is actually downloading information. With this view of things, scientists have truly limitless prospects. "We are still far from pumping data directly into the brain and filling the head with knowledge, as the heroes of The Matrix did," says Desni Tan from Microsoft, "but I'm looking forward to when we start doing it. That's why our company is investing in neuroengineering projects today." Andy May dreams about the same thing: he looks to the future with confidence and sees the day when "biochips will help us become universal information systems."

Having learned how to improve ordinary human functions (such as running, lifting and carrying objects, the ability to see and hear), scientists will upgrade the senses and create new opportunities. In practice, this will be embodied in infrared or ultrasound vision, connecting the brain to GPS, as well as direct mental access to so-called cloud computer systems.

By the way, we haven't even touched on the topic of genetic engineering and nanotechnology, which will allow us to create unimaginably small self-copying devices, such as a DNA-based robot developed at New York University.

Have you heard about the respirocyte, which was invented by Robert Freitas from the American Institute of Molecular Technology? This is a bionic analogue of a red blood cell – an erythrocyte. The respirocyte nanorobot is able to carry 236 times more oxygen than an ordinary blood cell, so with such "blood" you will never feel tired again. "Perhaps respirocytes will appear in the second half of the 20s of this century," Freitas believes, "and nanorobots will be widely used in medicine in the 2030s."

(Let's forgive the author's naive belief in nanorobots. And why they can never be, read the article "Myths of nanotechnology" – VM.)

In such a utopian future, we will turn into complex information systems with superpowers, and today's "healthy" people will seem inferior to us. However, this can lead to unpleasant consequences. It may be necessary to use legal mechanisms to influence the "improvers", designed to prevent their dominance over the intimidated militant "normals". But wait... this is the X-Men scenario. So, we can hope that everything will work out…

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru24.06.2010