Bionic Man: From Science fiction to Science Fact

Science fiction is being transformed into science fact using tiny implants effectively to channel brain-waves to prosthetic limbs.
Children of the 1970s will remember the American TV series The Six Million Dollar Man featuring Steve Austin as a bionic man.
Micro Bridge Services, based at Cardiff University, south Wales, is pioneering work which brings that fiction close to reality.
It is a leader in micro-engineering design and manufacture and possibly the only firm in the world capable of creating the implants.
The implants are the size of a match head which carries 100 sensors made of extremely hard tungsten carbide which conducts electricity.
The sensors are only slightly thicker than a human hair and sit on the brain picking up nerve impulses to relay to prosthetic limbs.
The hope is the technology will be instrumental in allowing amputees to learn to move prosthetic limbs and regain lost mobility.
Micro Bridge Services Ltd was set up by Cardiff University to tap the commercial potential of research being done there.
Researchers at Utah University, in the USA, asked the Cardiff Company to develop micro-needle array sensors which are durable.
The American team had already been successful developing implants capable of manipulating computers and prosthetic appendages.
But the implants had been made of silicon which proved to be brittle and had a useful life of less than a year.
The micro-needle array needed to be hardy but capable of penetrating deep enough into the brain to pick up electrical signals.
As a pioneer in its field its ability to manufacture the tiny micro-needle array precisely using an extremely strong material proved vital.
The implant works by detecting electrical signals from the brain, amplifying them then transmitting them to produce movements in the prosthetic limbs.
A patient fitted with an implant literally has to learn to think the correct mental activity to get the required response from the system.
Weeks of training are necessary but tests on volunteers have already shown promising results.
The outcome, is supposed to be what people call a bionic man.
For the future the hope is that the technology could be used on patients paralyzed in accidents which damage the spine.
The implant would be placed on the spinal column effectively bridging the injury and allowing them to relearn how to move.

--By Richard Alleyne

New Species Found in Asian Sea?

A square jaw and edgy brow give a distinctive profile to this boxfish, one of many exotic marine creatures recently found by scientists exploring Southeast Asia's Celebes Sea.

The international team of researchers recently returned from two weeks in the Celebes, a little-explored sea between Malaysia and the Philippines that is home to one of the world's deepest ocean basins.

The Celebes's relative isolation and chilly depths make it one of the world's most richly diverse marine habitats, likely hosting species that have lived in seclusion for millions of years, expedition leader Larry Madin told the Associated Press.

"This is probably the center where many of the species evolved and spread to other parts of the ocean, so it's going back to the source in many ways," said Madin, who is director of research at the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

The team found several species that are likely new to science, Madin added, including a swimming sea cucumber, a black jellyfish, and a spiny orange worm with tentacles growing out its head.

Experts will be studying the hundred specimens brought back from the expedition to determine which species are new discoveries.

The research was partly funded by WHOI, the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, the nonprofit Conservation International, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Philippine government.

Courtesy: National Geographic News