A new, first-of-its-kind clinical trial will examine how the brain adapts to advanced, bionic arms in children born without a limb, with the ultimate goal of improving children's control of their prosthetic.
Mar 14, 2022
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Did you ever dream of one day having X-ray vision or running as fast as a cheetah? Maybe you've imagined the benefits of lifting a car with just one hand, or being able to hear the sound of an ant's footsteps.
Dec 16, 2021
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A bionic eye being developed by a team of biomedical researchers at the University of Sydney and UNSW has shown to be safe and stable for long-term implantation in a three-month study, paving the way towards human trials.
Dec 1, 2021
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For a person with normal hearing, sound waves travel in the fluid-filled cochlea of the inner ear, causing sensory hair cells to react and send signals to the brain via the auditory neurons. For those with hearing loss, these ...
Oct 12, 2020
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A robotics company which began as a startup at Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) has launched the world's first medically certified 3-D printed artificial arms for amputees.
Apr 25, 2018
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Walk into Patrick Pilarski's lab and you immediately notice the robot arms and hands that lay casually on tabletops. You hear the soft whir of small motors as the fingers on these models curl, wave or extend. The motions ...
Apr 17, 2018
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Visual prostheses, or "bionic eyes", promise to provide artificial vision to visually impaired people who could previously see. The devices consist of micro-electrodes surgically placed in or near one eye, along the optic ...
Aug 17, 2017
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Expert clinicians and engineers at the University of Kent are carrying out the first clinical trials of robotic legs for patients.
May 12, 2016
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An Australian company has completed a trifecta of tools to help Australians take care of their own hearing without the stress and expense of audiology visits. It's the product of decades of government-backed research.
Apr 7, 2015
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(Medical Xpress)—A bionic heart is under development in Houston, Texas, which has been steadily generating interest over the past several years. According to Dylan Baddour in the Houston Chronicle on Thursday, researchers ...
Bionics (also known as biomimicry, biomimetics, bio-inspiration, biognosis, and close to bionical creativity engineering) is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology.[citation needed]
The word bionic was coined by Jack E. Steele in 1958, possibly originating from the technical term bion (pronounced bee-on) (from Ancient Greek: βίος), meaning 'unit of life' and the suffix -ic, meaning 'like' or 'in the manner of', hence 'like life'. Some dictionaries, however, explain the word as being formed as a portmanteau from biology + electronics. It was popularized by the 1970s television series The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, which were influenced by Steele's work, and feature humans given superhuman powers by electromechanical implants.
The transfer of technology between lifeforms and manufactures is, according to proponents of bionic technology, desirable because evolutionary pressure typically forces living organisms, including fauna and flora, to become highly optimized and efficient. A classical example is the development of dirt- and water-repellent paint (coating) from the observation that the surface of the lotus flower plant is practically unsticky for anything (the lotus effect).[citation needed]
The term "biomimetic" is preferred when reference is made to chemical reactions.[citation needed] In that domain, biomimetic chemistry refers to reactions that, in nature, involve biological macromolecules (for example, enzymes or nucleic acids) whose chemistry can be replicated using much smaller molecules in vitro.
Examples of bionics in engineering include the hulls of boats imitating the thick skin of dolphins; sonar, radar, and medical ultrasound imaging imitating the echolocation of bats.
In the field of computer science, the study of bionics has produced artificial neurons, artificial neural networks, and swarm intelligence. Evolutionary computation was also motivated by bionics ideas but it took the idea further by simulating evolution in silico and producing well-optimized solutions that had never appeared in nature.
It is estimated by Julian Vincent, professor of biomimetics at the University of Bath's department of mechanical engineering (Biomimetics group), that "at present there is only a 12% overlap between biology and technology in terms of the mechanisms used".
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
