'Bionic man' goes on show at British museum

A “bionic man” costing one million dollars went on display on Tuesday at Britain’s Science Museum, complete with artificial organs, synthetic blood and robot limbs.

Named Rex, which is short for “Robotic Exoskeleton”, the six foot six inch (two metre) humanoid with its uncannily life-like face was assembled by leading roboticists for a television programme.

Although cheaper than the “Six Million Dollar Man” made famous by the cult 1970s television series starring Lee Majors, the technology is far advanced from the fictional bionics on show back then.

The creation includes key advances in prosthetic technology, as well as an artificial pancreas, kidney, spleen and trachea and a functional blood circulatory system.

Welcoming Rex to the museum in London on Tuesday was Swiss social psychologist Bertolt Meyer, who was himself born without a left hand and has a sophisticated bionic replacement.

"I’ve looked around for new bionic technologies, out of personal interest, for a very long time and I think that until five or six years ago nothing much was happening," Meyer said.

"Then suddenly we are now at a point where we can build a body that is great and beautiful in its own special way."

The museum exhibit, which opens to the public on Thursday, will explore changing perceptions of human identity against the background of rapid progress in bionics—although Rex is not strictly bionic as he does not include living tissue.

With Evolved Brains, Robots Creep Closer To Animal-Like Learning

The most nightmare-inducing characteristic of Big Dog, DARPA’s robotic military mule, might be the way it moves so stiffly, yet unrelentingly, over treacherous battleground. Turns out the repetitive mechanical gait that calls to mind some coming robopocalypse is also a huge headache for Big Dog’s makers—and lots of the big thinkers behind walking bots envisioned for everyday domestic use.

Units like Big Dog move so awkwardly because of their rudimentary brains, which require pre-programming for every little action. A four-legged walking bot could jump smoothly over rocks or weave through trees with the fluid grace and reflexes of a cheetah—if it only had a better brain. One that was more animal-like. Thanks to breakthroughs in understanding how biological brains evolve, a team of robotic researchers say they’re close.

“We are working on evolving brains that can be downloaded onto a robot, wake up, and begin exploring their environment to figure out how to accomplish the high-level objectives we give them (e.g. avoid getting damaged, find recharging stations, locate survivors, pick up trash, etc.),” says Jeffrey Clune, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Wyoming, who is part of the robotics team.

Continue reading

Scientists build the One Million Dollar man

Robot Allows ‘Remote Presence’ in Programming Brain and Spine Stimulators

With the rapidly expanding use of brain and spinal cord stimulation therapy (neuromodulation), new “remote presence” technologies may help to meet the demand for experts to perform stimulator programming, reports a study in the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

The preliminary study by Dr. Ivar Mendez of Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, supports the feasibility and safety of using a remote presence robot—called the “RP-7”—to increase access to specialists qualified to program the brain and spine stimulators used in neuromodulation.

Read more

(Image: NEUROSURGERY® Editorial Office)

Machine Perception Lab Shows Robotic One-Year-Old on Video

The world is getting a long-awaited first glimpse at a new humanoid robot in action mimicking the expressions of a one-year-old child. The robot will be used in studies on sensory-motor and social development – how babies “learn” to control their bodies and to interact with other people.

Diego-san’s hardware was developed by leading robot manufacturers: the head by Hanson Robotics, and the body by Japan’s Kokoro Co. The project is led by University of California, San Diego full research scientist Javier Movellan.

Movellan directs the Institute for Neural Computation’s Machine Perception Laboratory, based in the UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). The Diego-san project is also a joint collaboration with the Early Play and Development Laboratory of professor Dan Messinger at the University of Miami, and with professor Emo Todorov’s Movement Control Laboratory at the University of Washington.

Movellan and his colleagues are developing the software that allows Diego-san to learn to control his body and to learn to interact with people.

"We’ve made good progress developing new algorithms for motor control, and they have been presented at robotics conferences, but generally on the motor-control side, we really appreciate the difficulties faced by the human brain when controlling the human body," said Movellan, reporting even more progress on the social-interaction side. "We developed machine-learning methods to analyze face-to-face interaction between mothers and infants, to extract the underlying social controller used by infants, and to port it to Diego-san. We then analyzed the resulting interaction between Diego-san and adults." Full details and results of that research are being submitted for publication in a top scientific journal.

While photos and videos of the robot have been presented at scientific conferences in robotics and in infant development, the general public is getting a first peak at Diego-san’s expressive face in action. On January 6, David Hanson (of Hanson Robotics) posted a new video on YouTube.

“This robotic baby boy was built with funding from the National Science Foundation and serves cognitive A.I. and human-robot interaction research,” wrote Hanson. “With high definition cameras in the eyes, Diego San sees people, gestures, expressions, and uses A.I. modeled on human babies, to learn from people, the way that a baby hypothetically would. The facial expressions are important to establish a relationship, and communicate intuitively to people.”

Diego-san is the next step in the development of “emotionally relevant” robotics, building on Hanson’s previous work with the Machine Perception Lab, such as the emotionally responsive Albert Einstein head.

Humanity becomes technology

Humanity’s merge with its technology, which began shortly after the taming of fire, is still happening today. Many predict that the fine-tuning of our DNA-based biology through stem cell and genetic research will spark a powerful nanotech revolution that promises to redesign and rebuild our bodies and the environment, pushing the limits of today’s understanding of life and the world we live in.

Nanotech will change our physical world much the same way that computers have transformed our information world. Physical things such as cars and houses could follow the same path of computers, when Moore’s Law correctly predicted value-to-cost would increase by 50% every 18 months.

Existing products that are now expensive, such as photovoltaic solar cells, will become so cheap in the decades ahead, that it may one day be possible to surface roads with solar-collecting materials that would also gather energy to power cars, ending much of the world’s dependency on fossil fuels.

In addition, imagine machines that create clothing, medicine, food and most essentials, with only your voice needed to command the action. Today, such devices are not available, but by early 2030s, experts predict, a home nanofactory will provide most of your family’s needs at little or no cost.

Now bring on the most amazing impending revolution – human-level robots – with intelligence derived from us, but with redesigned bodies that exceed human capabilities. These powerful android creatures expected by 2030, will enable us to tap into their super-computer minds to increase our own intelligence. Constructed with molecular nanotech processes, they will be affordable for every family.

Finally, by mid-century, many people will complete the technology merge by replacing more of their biology with nanomaterials, creating a powerful body that can automatically repair itself when damaged. No more concerns over sickness, accidents, or unwanted death.

Evolution created humanity; humanity created technology, humanity will soon become technology. This is simply our next evolutionary step. Where this trip will take us may be beyond present day knowledge, but whatever the future holds, many people alive today can expect to experience all of its wonders.

Of course, not everyone may hold such a glowing vision of how life may unfold, but for one who has seen so many amazing changes over the past eighty two years, I think it difficult to imagine a negative outcome as we trek through what promises to be an incredible future.

Virtual Reality and Robotics in Neurosurgery—Promise and Challenges

Robotic technologies have the potential to help neurosurgeons perform precise, technically demanding operations, together with virtual reality environments to help them navigate through the brain, according to a special supplement to Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

"Virtual Reality (VR) and robotics are two rapidly expanding fields with growing application within neurosurgery," according to an introductory article by Garnette Sutherland, MD. The 22 reviews, commentaries, and original studies in the special supplement provide an up-to-the-minute overview of "the benefits and ongoing challenges related to the latest incarnations of these technologies."

Robotics and VR in Neurosurgery—What’s Here and What’s Next
Virtual reality and robotic technologies present exciting opportunities for training, planning, and actual performance of neurosurgical procedures. Robotic tools under development or already in use can provide mechanical assistance, such as steadying the surgeon’s hand or “scaling” hand movements. “Current robots work in tandem with human operators to combine the advantages of human thinking with the capabilities of robots to provide data, to optimize localization on a moving subject, to operate in difficult positions, or to perform without muscle fatigue,” writes Dr. Sutherland.

Virtual reality technologies play an important role, providing “spatial orientation” between robotic instruments and the surgeon. Virtual reality environments “recreate the surgical space” in which the surgeon works, providing 3-D visual images as well as haptic (sense of touch) feedback. The ability to plan, rehearse, and “play back” operations in the brain could be particularly valuable for training neurosurgery residents—especially since recent work hour changes have limited opportunities for operating room experience.

The special supplement to Neurosurgery presents authoritative updates by experts working in the field of surgical robotics and VR technology, drawn from a wide range of disciplines. Topics include robotic technologies already in use, such as the “neuroArm” image-guided neurosurgical robot; reviews of progress in areas such as 3-D neurosurgical planning and virtual endoscopy; and new thinking on the best approaches to development, evaluation, and clinical uses of VR and robotic technologies.

But numerous and daunting technical challenges remain to be met before robotic and VR technologies become widely used in clinical neurosurgery. For example, VR environments require extremely fast processing times to provide the surgeon with continuously updated sensory information—equal to or faster than the brain’s ability to perceive it.

Economic challenges include the high costs of developing and implementing VR and robotic technologies, especially in terms of showing that the costs are justified by benefits to the patient. Continued progress in miniaturization will play an important role both in overcoming the technical challenges and in making the technology cost-effective.

The editors of Neurosurgery hope their supplement will stimulate interest and further progress in the development and practical implementation of VR and robotic technologies for neurosurgery. Dr. Sutherland adds, “Collaboration between the fields of medicine, engineering, science, and technology will allow innovations in these fields to converge in new products that will benefit patients with neurosurgical disease.”

(Image courtesy: Imperial College London)

Will we ever… have cyborg brains?

For the first time in over 15 years, Cathy Hutchinson brought a coffee to her lips and smiled. Cathy had suffered from the paralysing effects of a stroke, but when neurosurgeons implanted tiny recording devices in her brain, she could use her thought patterns to guide a robot arm that delivered her hot drink. This week, it was reported that Jan Scheuermann, who is paralysed from the neck down, could grasp and move a variety of objects by controlling a robotic arm with her mind.

In both cases the implants convert brain signals into digital commands that a robotic device can follow. It’s a remarkable achievement, one that could transform the lives of people debilitated through illness.

Yet it’s still a far cry from the visions of man fused with machine, or cyborgs, that grace computer games or sci-fi. The dream is to create the type of brain augmentations we see in fiction that provide cyborgs with advantages or superhuman powers. But the ones being made in the lab only aim to restore lost functionality – whether it’s brain implants that restore limb control, or cochlear implants for hearing.

Creating implants that improve cognitive capabilities, such as an enhanced vision “gadget” that can be taken from a shelf and plugged into our brain, or implants that can restore or enhance brain function is understandably a much tougher task. But some research groups are being to make some inroads.

For instance, neuroscientists Matti Mintz from Tel Aviv University and Paul Verschure from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, are trying to develop an implantable chip that can restore lost movement through the ability to learn new motor functions, rather than regaining limb control. Verschure’s team has developed a mathematical model that mimics the flow of signals in the cerebellum, the region of the brain that plays an important role in movement control. The researchers programmed this model onto a circuit and connected it with electrodes to a rat’s brain. If they tried to teach the rat a conditioned motor reflex – to blink its eye when it sensed an air puff – while its cerebellum was “switched off” by being anaesthetised, it couldn’t respond. But when the team switched the chip on, this recorded the signal from the air puff, processed it, and sent electrical impulses to the rat’s motor neurons. The rat blinked, and the effect lasted even after it woke up.

Continue reading