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Will
We Merge With Machines?
Advances
in medical science may well lead to more-than-human abilities
By Siri
Steiner
Source:
Popular
Science
The pattern
is familiar: Researchers develop a technology or drug to aid the ailing.
Soon thereafter, healthy people co-opt it to make themselves stronger,
faster or smarter. Follow this trend far enough, and we reach the augmented
human. Popular Science has scoured the most promising research under way
in bioengineering laboratories worldwide to take an informed look at how
technology will enter and alter our bodies over the coming decades. Below,
a glimpse at the man of the future.
KEY: WHEN?
• 0 - 5 years
• • 6 - 10 years
• • • 11 - 15 years
• • • • 16+ years
Telekinesis
Tech
• • • 11 - 15 years
Researchers at Brown University and Cyberkinetics in Foxborough, Massachusetts,
are devising brain implants that will enable us to communicate with machines.
A microchip implanted in the motor cortex just beneath your skull will
intercept nerve signals and reroute them to a computer, which will then
wirelessly send the command to any of various electronic devices, including
computers, stereos and electric wheelchairs.
Laser-Scanned
Eyes
• 0 - 5 years
Researchers at Smart Holograms in Cambridge, England, have made contact
lenses that tell diabetics when their blood sugar is awry. Changes in
tear sugars deform an insert in the lens, altering the refractions from
imperceptible dots on the surface. Next: a lens that detects blood pressure.
Cellphone
By Dentist
• • • 11 - 15 years
Imagine never forgetting your cellphone. A German design team has designed
a microvibration device and a wireless low-frequency receiver that can
be implanted in the tooth. The vibrator acts as microphone and speaker,
sending sound waves along the jawbone to your eardrum.
Heart
of Titanium
• 0 - 5 years
Today’s state-of-the-art artificial heart is the Abiocor. Unfortunately,
the device fits just 50 percent of the male population. It also quits
working after a year or two. The Abiocor II, due out in 2008, will be
30 percent smaller, fitting most men and 50 percent of women, and will
last up to five years.
Drug
Pusher
• • 6 - 10 years
ChipRx in Lexington, Kentucky, is developing a system that automatically
delivers the medication you need, when you need it. The matchstick-size
device is loaded with your prescription and inserted into the chest. When
its sensor notices changes in body chemistry or temperature, the device
pumps meds from its reservoir.
Stem-Cell
Sperm
• • • 11 - 15 years
Scientists at the University of Sheffield in England have created human
sperm from embryonic stem cells. If the procedure is commercially applied,
infertile men will take DNA from their skin to clone the stem cells and
then grow the cells into functioning sperm. The researchers predict that
the first child born of stem-cell sperm is about a decade away.
Muscles
Shocked Stiff
• • 6 - 10 years
One hundredth the size of a AA battery, the Bion, already used to strengthen
muscles in arthritis sufferers and stroke victims, could soon bring movement
back to paralyzed limbs. In clinical trials, doctors are injecting this
16-millimeter-long capsule of electrode-capped glass into lifeless muscle.
The patient activates it to mimic nerve impulses, forcing the muscle to
contract. This year the researchers, led by Gerald Loeb of the University
of Southern California, will add sensors that take cues from motor nerves
and send feedback to the Bion, making the system fully automatic.
Microchip
Memory
• • • 11-15 years
Neural engineer Ted Berger of the University of Southern California is
developing a way to enhance memory. A microchip will send signals from
one healthy brain cell to another, bypassing damaged tissue that would
otherwise block the message. His artificial hippocampus will first help
Alzheimer’s patients regain the ability to form memories, then aid
the merely forgetful.
Nerve-Zapping
Hearing Aid
• • 6 10 years
The Bionic Ear Institute in Australia is building an implant for the inner
ear that will shock damaged nerves back to health. A small pump showers
the nerves with stimulating chemicals while electrodes excite the cells
to keep them alive.
Four-Dimensional
Vision
• • • • 16+ years
Humans have three color-producing cones in our eyes—red, green and
blue. What if we had four? Scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin
hope to give us genes for a fourth cone to enable us to see new hues that
we can’t even imagine right now.
Beating
Band-Aid
• • • • 16+ years
Researchers at MIT are devising a bandage made with living heart cells.
After a heart attack, it will contract along with the rest of the heart,
replacing damaged tissue.
Shock
Therapy For the Gut
• 0 - 5 years
A pacemaker created by Transneuronix in New Jersey is helping test subjects
lose 25 to 40 percent of their body fat. Its mild shocks relax and expand
the upper part of the stomach, and the brain interprets the distended
stomach as feeling full.
High-Fiber
Lung
• • 6 - 10 years
University of Pittsburgh researchers are working on the world’s first
implantable lung. The tube-shaped device will be made of gas-permeable
microfibers. Carbon dioxide diffuses across the fibers and moves toward
a compact pump at the hip. The pump expels the carbon dioxide and pulls
in oxygen, which diffuses back through the fibers into the blood.
Kidney
In A Tube
• • 6 - 10 years
About 62,000 Americans are now waiting for a kidney. Traditional dialysis
is a painful process that removes nutrients along with the toxins. To
avoid this problem, researchers at Nephros Therapeutics in Rhode Island
are putting live kidney cells to work in dialysis machines. As the apparatus
filters the blood, the kidney cells grab essential nutrients from the
filtrate and return them to the purified blood. In the next decade, researchers
at the University of Michigan hope to implant smaller versions directly
into the body, in the femoral artery near the hip. As blood moves through
the artery, it will filter through the artificial kidney.
Nonslip
Disc
• 0 - 5 years
Usually when you rupture or dislocate a spinal disc, doctors have to fuse
nearby vertebrae to prevent them from rubbing against each other. But
now there’s the Charité, approved by the FDA last fall, a
disc of polyethylene and cobalt-chromium alloy that shifts and slides
to allow a full 21 degrees of motion.
Freed
Knees
• 0 - 5 years
When doctors replace a knee, they remove the anterior cruciate ligament,
shifting the primary contact area from the inner edge of the knee to the
outer edge. The 3DKnee made by Encore Medical Corp. in Austin, Texas,
is the first to take this switch into account, so the knee feels more
natural and lasts longer.
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