The prosthesis history has thousands of years. First prosthesis was made in Ancient Greece for Themistocles who got chained and has nothing to do but saw his leg. After the escape the hero asked his fellow carpenter to make an artificial leg. Modern world has divided prosthesis into the internal focused on production and implantation of the internal organs and tissues and the external mostly inclined to skeletons, external constructions and nonsurgical operations. Sweet motion Legendary Toyota company got on the robotics path and has even constructed several curious systems for helping out the disabled and the elderly within the Robot-Partner program. The brightest example of the line is Walking Assistant which apparently helps people with one paralyzed leg to walk using their groin muscles. The sensors detecting steps and user’s intentions are to be fixed on the knee and the foot. The user in these circumstances needs only to sway the leg. The system allows to control the speed and it charges from the 3.5 kilo battery located in the backpack. Heart for the Tin Woodman Exoskeleton is a second motor apparatus which fully undertakes the loads and helps the disabled moving and the able-bodied increasing power. It was the golden dream of all Hollywood film directors, writers, all kind of movie-making industry workers and ordinary gapers. Cheer up, gentlemen, the dream is coming true. Currently there are 3 most advanced exoskeletons almost accepted by DARPA. The first to present is HULC by Lockheed Martin. It is good in general, but lacks some arms. However it has back support system and mechanic legs and weighs 25 kilos in total. Still this doesn’t stop the machine from carrying 90 kg and undergo additional loads. HULC is powered by the Li-Ion battery and can operate for 8 hours in between the recharges. By the way, the skeleton provides running at 18-20 km/h speed. Raytheon’s XOS 2 already has arms (comparing to HULC) and can easily lift… the same 90 kilos, which, of course is a breakthrough, especially regarding the ability to run at 12 km/h. The exoskeleton is so flexible that it allows playing football and running up and down the stairs, sometimes even skipping every second step. However, the construction has quite a remarkable feature, it doesn’t have accumulators and thus is powered by the electricity and has to draw all the wires. The third specimen is HAL-5 by Cyberdyne Systems. This exoskeleton became something in between of the previously descripted models. It is free to move without wires treating sockets with contempt as HULC, anyway it has about 2.5-3 hours of autonomous work. The skeleton has full construction as XOS. Summing up, we can observe that operation time without recharge considerably reduced as the speed and lifting abilities. Some sources claim that Russian Engineers for the Future-2012 industrial forum also gave fruits on the solutions of the kind with brightly thought tremendous innovative power system, but it is somewhere under development yet. Print yourself a merry little liver Amazing, but true. 3D-printer is fully capable of creating human tissues, skin, bones, blood vessels, and the organs themselves. Only several hours are needed to make an exact copy. And this is not the end. The unique device has healing effect and is able to eliminate the results of various injuries. The damaged area is simply filled with artificial tissue. First tests of the printer charged with cell instead of the ink revealed a problem: without continuous nutrition the cells were dying before printing was over. In Summer 2012 biotechnologists from Pennsylvania, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge found an appropriate solution by applying the sugar wireframe imitating blood-vessel net for cells building. The sugar construction of the future organ was filled with gel comprising the living cells of rat’s liver. The field experts believe this technology to be successfully used in recreating every organ of the body. Since the beginning of 2012 various countries have produced several genuinely extraordinary and outstanding operations on implanting the printed organs and tissues to humans. The 83 y.o. woman from the Netherlands received a new titanium printed jaw instead of the one destroyed by cancer. Two-year old Emma Lavel from Philadelphia had an inherited arthrogryposis (her joints had limited mobility). American specialists printed her the elements for exoskeleton and the girl got an opportunity to draw, play and hug as ordinary children. At the beginning of 2013 a group of American scientists worked out an aural cavity identical to the patient’s. The printed form was filled with special gel and cartilaginous cells. Three months after the implantation normal chondral tissue grew. It is also quite remarkable that aural cavity doesn’t deform afterwards. The scientists hope that the technology might be used in everyday clinical experience. A month ago FDA of the USA allowed to implant the parts printed on 3D printer. Soon after this a patient got 75% of his skull replaced with a polymer material made of PEKK consisting of many layers subsequently melted by the laser from granules. The furrows and hollows of the prosthesis promote bone tissue growth. «Johnny mnemonic» And in the end, MIT experts anticipated the so called Memory implants to be one of the most exciting developments. The chip is implanted into the brains in order to restore the lost memories due to saving the codes of long-term memories even after the serious traumas. The technologies might be applied to helping the patients with Alzheimer disease, cerebrovascular accidents or amnesia. It is quite likely to have this neuron prosthesis used widely for facilitating the memorization processes in no time.
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