GREGOR SAMSA SMILES: How Severed Cockroach Legs Could Help Us ‘Fully Rebuild’ Human Bodies.

Hugh Herr, Ph.D., co-founder of MIT’s Center for Bionics, is one of them. The first prostheses he designed were his own, after doctors told him he’d never rock climb again following a double amputation below the knees. Today, he researches ways to make replacement limbs more cyborg-like and integrated with their human hosts. His ultimate goal is what he calls embodiment, where “the electromechanics are so married to human physiology you can’t remove them.” This means a prosthetic limb would no longer be a tool you can take off, like a pair of glasses, but another part of your body that responds without you having to even think about it, more like a pacemaker. “In the future,” Herr tells Popular Mechanics, “when a person has cancer, we will be able to fully rebuild their body.”

That may sound like a lofty goal, but we’re rapidly getting closer to realizing it. When it comes to getting human physiology and mechanical parts to play nicely together, there are three main interfaces, Herr says:

• The mechanical, or how seamlessly the external limb attaches to biological components while remaining effective;
• The neural, or how to connect the prosthetic part to the brain and both give and receive feedback from it; and
• Cutaneous feedback, which largely focuses on proprioception, or the sense of knowing where in space a limb is.

Right now, most commercial prosthetics are controlled by electric signals transmitted via sensors to the muscles and nerves adjacent to the amputation site. While capable of somewhat sophisticated movements, these devices often lack a lot in terms of control and natural sensation, e.g., being able to feel that your foot is on level ground.

Reading between the lines, Kremlinology style, this sort of article, appearing at the beginning of an election year, can only mean one thing: leftist scientists are once again hoping to advance exoskeleton technology sufficiently quickly, to allow Hillary Clinton yet another shot at campaigning this year, if Biden’s adrenochrome dosages aren’t sufficiently powerful enough to get him through the campaign season. Wake up, sheeple!