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Robot Wars _ 3 part documentary for ABC TV.

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Robot Wars was originally aired across 3 weeks on HungryBeast. The series of segments looks at the current (as of Sept. 2009) state of remote warfare technology and the ethical implications of its use.

The story features Leading analyst Peter W. Singer, from the Brookings Institute in Washington.

I wrote, cut and produced the story with lots of support from Sarah Douglas, Andrew Denton and the rest of the HungryBeast crew.

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Cyborg Powers Weapons and Fighting Skills Compilation

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Cyborg Powers Weapons and Fighting Skills Compilation

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Cyborg Powers Weapons and Fighting Skills Compilation

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The Bionic Man is the world's first robot human made entirely of prosthetic parts.

Credit: Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel

He walks, he talks and he has a beating heart, but he's not human - he's the world's first fully bionic man.

Like Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of body parts, the bionic man is an amalgam of the most advanced human prostheses - from robotic limbs to artificial organs to a blood-pumping circulatory system.

The creature "comes to life" in "The Incredible Bionic Man," premiering Sunday (Oct. 20) on the Smithsonian Channel at 9 p.m. EDT/8 p.m. CDT. [ Watch Video of the Bionic Man]

Million-dollar man

Roboticists Rich Walker and Matthew Godden of Shadow Robot Co. in England led the assembly of the bionic man from prosthetic body parts and artificial organs donated by laboratories around the world.

"Our job was to take the delivery of a large collection of body parts - organs, limbs, eyes, heads - and over a frantic six weeks, turn those parts into a bionic man," Walker told LiveScience during an interview. But it's not as simple as connecting everything like Tinkertoys. "You put a prosthetic part on a human who is missing that part," Walker said. "We had no human; we built a human for the prosthetic parts to occupy."

The robot, which cost almost $1 million to build, was modeled in some physical aspects after Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist at the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, who wears one of the world's most advanced bionic hands. [ See Photos of the Bionic Man]

The bionic man has the same prosthetic hand as Meyer - the i-LIMB made by Touch Bionics - with a wrist that can fully rotate and motors in each finger. The hand's grasping abilities are impressive, but the bionic man still drops drinks sometimes.

"He's not the world's best bartender," Walker said.

The robot sports a pair of robotic ankles and feet from BiOM in Bedford, Mass., designed and worn by bioengineer Hugh Herr of MIT's Media Lab, who lost his own legs after getting trapped in a blizzard as a teenager.

To support his prosthetic legs, the bionic man wears a robotic exoskeleton dubbed "Rex," made by REX Bionics in New Zealand. His awkward, jerky walk makes him more Frankensteinian than ever.

Factory-made organs

But it doesn't end there - the bionic man also has a nearly complete set of artificial organs, including an artificial heart, blood, lungs (and windpipe), pancreas, spleen, kidney and functional circulatory system.

The artificial heart, made by SynCardia Systems in Tucson, Ariz., has beenimplanted in more than 100 peopleto replace their ailing hearts for six to 12 months while they wait for a transplant, Walker said. The circulatory system, built by medical researcher Alex Seifalian of University College London,consists of veins and arteries made from a polymer used to create synthetic organs of any shape.

While it might not satisfy the Scarecrow from "The Wizard of Oz," the bionic man's "brain" can mimic certain functions of the human brain. He has a retinal prosthesis, made by Second Sight in Sylmar, Calif., which can restore limited sight in blind people. He also sports a cochlear implant, speech recognition and speech production systems.

The engineers equipped the bionic man with a sophisticated chatbot program that can carry on a conversation. The only problem is, it has the persona of "an annoying 13-year-old boy from the Ukraine," Walker said.

The most unnerving aspect of the bionic man, though, is his prosthetic face. It's an uncanny replica of Meyer's face. In fact, when Meyer first saw it, he hated it, describing it on the show as "awkward."

The bionic man successfully simulates about two-thirds of the human body. But he lacks a few major organs, including a liver, stomach and intestines, which are still too complex to replicate in a lab.

The bionic man brings up some ethical and philosophical questions: Does creating something so humanlike threaten notions of what it means to be human? What amount of body enhancement is acceptable? And is it wrong that only some people have access to these life-extending technologies?

The access issue is especially troublesome, Walker said. "The preservation of life and quality of life has become basically a technical question and an economic question."

The bionic man made his U.S. debut at New York Comic Con Oct. 10-13, and he will be on display at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. this fall.

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1st Fully Bionic Man Walks, Talks and Breathes

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He walks, he talks and he has a beating heart, but he's not human - he's the world's first fully bionic man. Like Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of body parts, the bionic man is an amalgam of the most advanced human prostheses - from robotic limbs to artificial organs to a blood-pumping circulatory system.

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This Robotic Hand Can Touch and Feel, Just Like a Human Hand | Cyborg Nation

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Imagine robotic fingers that can feel vibrations, textures, and temperatures. For those with prosthetic hands, it's no longer a dream, it's reality. Find out how one company is disrupting the prosthetic hand field by mimicking the sensation a hand feels with synthetic fingernails and fingerprints.

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The World's First Mind-Controlled Bionic Leg

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A company in Iceland are now trialling a new set of prosthetic legs controlled only by your brain. They claim they are the first in the world to produce lower limbs in this way.

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The Bionic Man | Robotica | The New York Times

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The Bionic Man | Robotica | The New York Times

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The Bionic Man | Robotica | The New York Times

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Les Baugh lost his arms as a teenager. Engineers at Johns Hopkins are trying to give them back, but better. Mr. Baugh is testing a robotic prosthetic that he can control with his mind.

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Titanium 3D Printing in Action - Electron Beam Melting (EBM)

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Electron Beam Melting is an Additive Manufacturing technology that build part by melting layers of metal powder with a high-power electron beam gun. The video shows the process together with some samples of implants built in titanium. More info at http://www.pro-fit.de and http://www.netfabb.com

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Using Stem Cells for spinal injuries

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California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

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First Human Embryonic Stem Cell Trial for Spinal Cord Injury

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Embryonic Stem Cells Cure Spinal Cord Injury

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California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

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Spinal Cord Injury: Progress and Promise in Stem Cell Research

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The world's first human embryonic stem cell-based clinical trial has been approved for the treatment of spinal cord injury. Oswald Steward, Director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine and member of the CIRM Governing Board, discusses the pioneering work that led to the clinical trial and Roman Reed gives a personal perspective of spinal cord injury and his patient advocacy work.

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Scientists are claiming "extraordinary" success with engineering immune cells to target a specific type of blood cancer in their first clinical trials.

Among several dozen patients who would typically have only had months to live, early experimental trials that used the immune system's T-cells to target cancers had "extraordinary results".

In one study, 94% of participants with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) saw symptoms vanish completely. Patients with other blood cancers had response rates greater than 80%, and more than half experienced complete remission.

Speaking at the annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement for Science (AAAS), researcher Stanley Riddell said: "This is unprecedented in medicine, to be honest, to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients."

Modified T-cell therapy - graphic

To administer the T-cell therapy, doctors remove immune cells from patients, tagging them with "receptor" molecules that target a specific cancer, as other T-cells target the flu or infections. They then infuse the cells back in the body.

"There are reasons to be optimistic, there are reasons to be pessimistic," said Riddell, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Washington state. He added that the researchers believe that lowering the dose of T-cells can reduce the risk of side-effects.

"These are in patients that have failed everything. Most of the patients in our trial would be projected to have two to five months to live."

Even more hopeful was researcher Chiara Bonini, who said she has not seen remission rates like those of recent trials in over 15 years. "This is really a revolution," she said.

"T-cells are a living drug, and in particular they have the potential to persist in our body for our whole lives."

Bonini, a haematologist at San Raffaele University in Milan, said that in another study researchers had tracked the presence of "memory" T-cells for two to 14 years after they had been introduced into cancer patients for whom bone marrow transplants had failed to work.

"This is a living therapy," Riddell said. When you put it in the cells will undergo expansion in vivo."

Tests so far have only targeted certain blood cancers, and the researchers acknowledged they needed to work on tumors and track how long patients would remain in remission. Cancer cells can sometimes hide unnoticed by the body's defenses, or simply overwhelm them and throw the immune system into overdrive.

T-cell therapy is often considered an option of last resort because reprogramming the immune system can come with dangerous side-effects, including cytokine release syndrome (sCRS) - and overload defense cells. Twenty patients suffered symptoms of fever, hypotension and neurotoxicity due to sCRS, and two died, but the researchers noted that chemotherapy had failed in all the patients who participated in the new trials.

Riddell hesitated to say when the work would move beyond limited trials, but Bonini said: "I think we're very close to some cellular product."

She also expressed hope that the modified memory T-cells could eventually provide a long-term defense against cancer, using cells that "remember it from 10 years earlier, and kill it so quickly you don't even know you're infected".

In the most promising study, about 35 patients with ALL were treated with Cars-modified T-cells; 94% went into remission, though symptoms could reappear. More than 40 patients with lymphoma have also been treated, with remission rates of more than 50%. In a group with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, there was evidence of diminished cancer symptoms in more than 80% of cases.

"Much like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, it's not going to be a save-all," Riddell said of the new therapy, adding: "I think immunotherapy has finally made it to a pillar of cancer therapy."

A paper on the ALL research is currently under review and pending publication.
Topics

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Cancer researchers claim 'extraordinary results' using T-cell therapy

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Scientists are claiming "extraordinary" success with engineering immune cells to target a specific type of blood cancer in their first clinical trials. Among several dozen patients who would typically have only had months to live, early experimental trials that used the immune system's T-cells to target cancers had "extraordinary results".

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A lady from the UK which has a bionic hand

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Bionic Hand Helps Mary Free Bed Patient Achieve Independence

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bionic hand: UK user receives ‘world’s most lifelike’ bionic hand

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First UK user receives world's most lifelike bionic hand: Nicky Ashwell has become the first UK user to receive the world's most lifelike hand - the bebionic small, and the technology was showcased at the official UK launch in London on 16 June 2015. Read more: http://www.iambiomed.com/article/539/British-woman-receives-worlds-most-lifelike-bionic-hand-Video This video is for information purpose.

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Face Transplant Before and After Connie Culp was the victim of a shotgun blast to her face by her husband on September 2004. The gunshot left her severely disfigured and in the process shattering her nose, cheek and jaw. She later became the first-ever to receive a face transplant in the U.S.

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This is a teaching video I use in training residents for cataract surgery at Wills Eye Hospital. It describes the removal a very dense, white cataract and the special techniques required for its safe removal.

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New 'bionic' leg gives amputees a natural gait

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A new lower-limb prosthetic developed at Vanderbilt University allows amputees to walk without the leg-dragging gait characteristic of conventional artificial legs. Read more: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2011/08/bionic-leg/

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Treatment Options for Heart Valve Replacement

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Heart Valve Replacement Surgery Explained Part

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How heart valve replacement surgery is carried out

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Heart valve replacement surgery involves repairing or replacing one or more heart valves that may be diseased or damaged. Find out more here: http://bit.ly/OsDjzp The content is intended for general information only and does not replace the need for personal advice from a qualified health professional.

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A tiny new tool to get rid of brain clots will be a "game changer for stroke treatment," Roizen says. Although clot-dissolving drugs are the first line of treatment for the most common type of stroke, when they don't do the trick, physicians can now use a stent retriever to remove the small mass. A wire with a mesh-like tip is guided through the artery into the brain to grab the clot. When the wire is removed, the clot goes with it. The American Heart Association has given the device its strongest recommendation, after studies found it improves the odds that certain patients will survive and function normally again.
3. Brain-limb connection
The goal of linking the brain to a robotic limb to help paralyzed people and amputees move naturally is closer than ever. Previously, brain implants to help move these artificial limbs have had limited success because the person had to think about each individual action (open hand, close hand) in order to move the limb. But now researchers are putting implants in the area of the brain that controls the intention to move, not just the physical movement itself. This allows patients to fluidly guide a robotic limb. "We think this will get FDA approval in the next year and will have a major clinical impact on paralyzed patients," Roizen says.
4. Fine-tuning genes
Next year could see major strides toward the goal of cutting harmful genetic mistakes from a person's DNA. A gene-editing tool is a powerful technology that allows scientists to easily correct or edit DNA. "It basically gives you a scissors to cut out pieces of genes," Roizen explains. The technology was recently used to eradicate leukemia in a British child by giving her gene-edited immune cells to fight off the disease. This could represent a huge step toward treating other diseases, including correcting gene mutations that cause inherited diseases, but ethicists and scientists worry the technology could also be used to alter traits for nonmedical reasons.
5. New cancer vaccines
Your body's immune system fights off germs that cause infections - could it be taught to fight off cancer cells? That's the idea behind new immunotherapy cancer vaccines, which train the immune system to use its antiviral fighting response to destroy cancer cells without harming healthy cells. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already has approved such vaccines for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer and melanoma. Current research is focused on pairing new and old vaccines, including the tetanus vaccine with a newer cancer vaccine to treat glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer. Those who received the dual vaccine lived three to seven more years after treatment than those who received an injection without the tetanus portion. Among the most eagerly anticipated vaccines in 2016, Misialek says, is a lung cancer vaccine. Work on such a vaccine, first developed in Cuba, is already underway here.
6. Faster public health vaccines
In the wake of the Ebola outbreak last year, the process for producing vaccines to protect the public against a possible epidemic has gone into warp drive - a feat that makes it the Cleveland Clinic's top medical innovation for 2016. The fear that, with international travel, a single person could potentially infect huge numbers of people "has led to a system to be able to immunize a large number of people really fast," Roizen explains. Where previously it took decades to develop a vaccine, the Ebola vaccine was ready in six months. A similarly accelerated process was behind the approval of a meningitis B vaccine following outbreaks at two universities.

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Health Care Advancements for 2016 - Top Medical Breakthroughs

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A tiny new tool to get rid of brain clots will be a "game changer for stroke treatment," Roizen says. Although clot-dissolving drugs are the first line of treatment for the most common type of stroke, when they don't do the trick, physicians can now use a stent retriever to remove the small mass.

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Uploaded by The Documentry Library Channel on 2014-11-09.

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A revolutionary prosthetic hand that connects the directly to the brain has allowed a 28-year-old paralysed volunteer to "feel" physical sensations for the first time in a decade.

The prosthetic has been created as part of a project by Darpa, the US government's defence research agency, which is primarily famous for its work in military robotics. As well as building weaponised drones however, the agency also has a programme dedicated to revolutionising prosthetics through the introduction of feedback loops.

The whole premise for the project has been that people living with paralysis or missing limbs will only be able to manipulate objects by controlling their robotic prostheses directly from their brain, and are able to sense what they are touching.

Its latest breakthrough is subtle enough for the paralysed volunteer to identify exactly which mechanical finger has been touched -- even if two are touched at once. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to place electrode arrays onto the volunteer's sensory cortex -- the region of the brain that identifies tactile sensations and the motor cortex -- the region of the brain that directs body movements. Wires were then run from the motor cortex to the prosthesis.

It's not the first time Darpa has implemented this technology, but it has broken new neurological ground by routing electrical signals from touch signals in the prosthesis back to the sensory cortex. "We've completed the circuit," said Justin Sanchez, who manages the Darpa programme. "Prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by thoughts are showing great promise, but without feedback from signals traveling back to the brain it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements. By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain, this work shows the potential for seamless bio-technological restoration of near-natural function."

In tests, the volunteer could identify even the lightest touches to their finger with nearly 100 percent accuracy. "At one point, instead of pressing one finger, the team decided to press two without telling him," said Sanchez. "He responded in jest asking whether somebody was trying to play a trick on him. That is when we knew that the feelings he was perceiving through the robotic hand were near-natural."

Completing this "circuit" in the prosthetic hand is one of a series of breakthroughs in prosthetics that have occurred over the past few years marking a massive shift in the affordability and sophistication of a technology which has seen little innovation in decades. WIRED has been keeping a close eye on this innovation, which promises to eventually transform the lives of everyone across the world in need of prosthetic limbs.

The prosthetics revolution

Ossur -- brain-controlled prosthetics

In May this year, WIRED reported the story of Cathy Hutchinson, the first almost-fully paralysed person to be able to take a drink by controlling a robotic arm using her mind. Despite the fact that the technology, called myoelectric prostheses, that allowed her to do this has been in development for years, brain controlled prostheses are still far from commonplace.

Shortly after WIRED published Hutchinson's story, Icelandic company Ossur announced that brain controlled prostheses would be widely available within a couple of years. The company's extensive work in revolutionary prosthetics were responsible for Oscar Pistorius' Flex-Foot Cheetah Blades and it even claims it has developed the first prosthetics that can even react to "subconscious" thoughts, rather than just conscious decisions to move.

Open bionics -- 3D printing affordable prosthetics

WIRED first encountered Bristol-based Open Bionics at the final of Intel's Make It Wearable competition at the end of 2014. Only last month, the company, which 3D prints custom-made lightweight prosthetics that can cheaply and quickly be fitted to those with missing limbs, was announced as the winner of the 2015 James Dyson prize.

bebionic3 -- introducing extreme versatility

Speaking at WIRED Health this year, Nigel Ackland who lost his arm in an industrial accident told the story of how he came to wear one of the world's most advanced prosthetics.

The bebionic3 was developed by Leeds-based assistive living company RSLSteeper and can form multiple grips. Wearing the prosthetic has given Ackland back much of the independence and manoeuvrability that he lost when he had his accident, dramatically improving his quality of life. It's worth watching his WIRED Health talk to hear him tell his moving story in his own words.

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Bionic hand can feed physical sensations directly to the brain

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A revolutionary prosthetic hand that connects the directly to the brain has allowed a 28-year-old paralysed volunteer to "feel" physical sensations for the first time in a decade. The prosthetic has been created as part of a project by Darpa, the US government's defence research agency, which is primarily famous for its work in military robotics.

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Australian current affairs forum, with lively debate and powerful first-person stories. Hosted by award-winning journalist Jenny Brockie. (An SBS Production) CC

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Cyborg Revolution: Latest Technologies and TOP of Real Cyborgs

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Cyborg Revolution: Latest Technologies and TOP of Real Cyborgs

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Avengers: Age of Ultron Sneak Peek (2015) - New Avengers Movie HD

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8 Amazing ROBOTS ANIMAL YOU NEED TO SEE ▶ 1

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8 Amazing ROBOTS ANIMAL YOU NEED TO SEE ▶ 1

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8 Amazing ROBOTS ANIMAL YOU NEED TO SEE ▶ 1

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTfzYDZG8c

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Human Robot Feet

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This is a prosthetic arm

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You wouldn't realise he's wearing an artificial leg

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You wouldn't realise he's wearing an artificial leg

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You wouldn't realise he's wearing an artificial leg

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http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411629.htm

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Australian inventor of the 'bionic ear' conducts the world's first cochlear implant operation - 80 Days That Changed Our Lives - ABC Archives

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'When he heard his first words I was just so overcome I went into the next door laboratory and wept for joy.' Professor Graeme Clark develops the cochlear implant.

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Robot Arms

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'Terminator' arm is world's most advanced prosthetic limb | SWNS TV

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iThink, therefore iAm? That gets old fast no thanks to Apple’s i-Everything naming convention. Designer Paul Micarelli have come up with a...

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New bionics let us run, climb and dance | Hugh Herr | TED

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A very human-like robot invented by Japanese engineers

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Can these smart glasses do what Google couldn’t?

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AirDog - the auto-follow drone for adventure sports

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Watch Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Control a Giant Mech Robot

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Watch Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Control a Giant Mech Robot

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(Image credit: Jeff Bezos/Twitter)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos got to live out every 6-year-old's fantasy when he got behind the controls of a giant "mech" robot.

The Verge reports that Bezos tried out the 13-foot-tall (4 meters) robot yesterday (March 19) at his company's private Machine Learning, Home Automation, Robotics and Space Exploration (MARS) conference. Video of the bot, developed by Hankook Mirae Technology in South Korea, first surfaced in December in promotional clips. Live Science was skeptical of the robot's existence and functionality at the time.

But the new video reveals that the robot does, indeed, exist. However, it's far from clear how much the mech (a term for piloted, humanoid robots) can really do. Bezos flails the arms around using controls in the robot's torso cockpit, but the robot does not take any steps and is tethered to the ceiling, presumably for safety reasons. [ The 6 Strangest Robots Ever Created]

Giant mech

The robot does not pick anything up in the video, either, which is notable because its developers say that one of their goals is to create piloted robots for real-world jobs, like cleaning up the Fukushima nuclear power plant that was damaged in 2011 when a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. So far, none of the footage of the mech has shown it manipulating objects. The massive bot also runs on external power, which means that, so far, it's unable to work untethered.

@JeffBezos "Why do I feel so much like #sigourneyweaver ?" @amazon #MARS2017 #openpodbaydoors pic.twitter.com/HRRzmQtZbh

Such limitations could be overcome. Roboticists have already developed robots that can navigate uneven terrain, including Boston Dynamics' intimidating "Big Dog" and the bipedal "Atlas" humanoid robot. Atlas can open doors, lift boxes and even right itself when pushed, and operates with an internal power source. Those bots are much smaller than the giant mech Hankook Mirae is trying to develop, however, and don't present the same safety challenges as a piloted robot. According to Hankook Mirae's website, the mech robot, nicknamed Method 2, weighs a minimum of 1.6 tons.

Sci-fi fantasy

A designer affiliated with Hankook Mirae, Vitaly Bulgarov, told Live Science in December that the giant mech has been under development for several years and is a prototype made to show off particular technologies, like the human-machine interface that controls the arms.

In that case, the mech may never be used for more than demonstration purposes, while the individual technologies used to make it might be redirected to more practical designs.

Whatever the ultimate function of the robot, it certainly taps into human fantasies of what robots should be. Mechs like the Method 2 design appear in the 2009 film "Avatar" as well as in "Starship Troopers" (1997) and in "Pacific Rim" (2013). The character of Ripley (played by actress Sigourney Weaver) also uses one in the classic sci-fi film "Aliens" (1986), which Bezos referenced during his ride in Method 2.

"Why do I feel so much like Sigourney Weaver?" Bezos quipped.
Original article on Live Science. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

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Watch Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Control a Giant Mech Robot

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(Image credit: Jeff Bezos/Twitter) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos got to live out every 6-year-old's fantasy when he got behind the controls of a giant "mech" robot. The Verge reports that Bezos tried out the 13-foot-tall (4 meters) robot yesterday (March 19) at his company's private Machine Learning, Home Automation, Robotics and Space Exploration (MARS) conference.

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The MOST advanced bionic arm in the world

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The MOST advanced bionic arm in the world

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The MOST advanced bionic arm in the world

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How we'll become cyborgs and extend human potential | Hugh Herr

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How we'll become cyborgs and extend human potential | Hugh Herr

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How we'll become cyborgs and extend human potential | Hugh Herr