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Bi-on-ics
Etymology: from bi (as in “life”) + onics (as in “electronics”); the study of mechanical systems that function like living organisms or parts of living organisms
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Photograph by Robert Clark
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Wired for Sound Aiden Kenny got two cochlear implants when he was ten months old. Bypassing parts of his ears that don't work, the implants—visible in an x-ray—carry electronic signals to his auditory nerves. Within months of the surgery, a child who'd grown increasingly quiet spoke the words his hearing parents longed for: Mama and Dada. "You're looking at a real bionic kid," says Johns Hopkins University surgeon John Niparko.]]>
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Photograph by Robert Clark
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Photograph by Max Aguilera-Hellweg
New Vision Eyelids stretched wide under anesthesia, Jo Ann Lewis, 79, received new hardware in and around her eyeball, which works with a computer to transmit imagery to her brain. Electronics circumvent damaged light-receptor cells and give the blind Texan back a vestige of vision—shimmering lines, vague shapes, washes of color. "I don't see like you see," she says. "We're on the ground floor of this technology."]]>
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Photograph by Second Sight Medical Products
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Photograph by Max Aguilera-Hellweg
Familiar Sight Using her new bionic vision, Jo Ann Lewis recognizes objects she knew before losing her sight, though they're blurry and vague. With practice, and her brain's natural learning ability, objects should be more recognizable.]]>
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Photograph by Max Aguilera-Hellweg
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Mind and Machine An array of sensors tracks muscle movements that Amanda Kitts produces in her residual arm thanks to surgically rerouted nerves. Next-generation prostheses obey relayed signals, increasingly working like her original limb.]]>
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Bionic Woman Kitts imagines a hand movement, and muscle activity in her residual arm—decoded by a computer on her back—causes the actual motion. When she straps on the experimental Johns Hopkins-developed arm at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, she says, "often it feels like I'm not missing anything."]]>
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Body Redux Twenty motors animate a cutting-edge bionic arm that mimics a flesh-and-blood limb with unprecedented accuracy. Users control it via nerve impulses. It even has sensors that register touch.]]>
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Staying in Step Motorized springs in a powered ankle push off like a real leg, saving energy and easing joint problems. "Military amputees are young and athletic," says designer Tom Sugar (at right), an Arizona State University engineering professor. "They want back all the function they had."]]>
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Warrior's Focus A roadside bomb in Iraq took his legs in 2007. Now Lt. Col. Greg Gadson tests powered limbs meant to restore mobility to the growing ranks of injured troops.]]>
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen
Warrior's Focus On a track at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, Gadson's computerized PowerKnees transfix young and old. He's regaining his balance, Gadson says, "by meshing my 43-year-old body with a machine."]]>