The research group at Cleveland Clinic’s Laboratory for Bionic Integration looks at the inside of the touch robot system. Each small black box provides individual finger sensation to the user through a neural-machine interface.
Cleveland Clinic
Dreaming of a future where Luke Skywalker’s replacement hand is more than a sci-fi fantasy, scientists have designed a “bionic arm” that enlists help from tiny robots to re-create the vital sensations forfeited when one loses an upper limb. The bots do that by safely vibrating muscles at the amputation site.
By 2028, the global prosthetics and orthotics market is expected to reach over $8 billion, according to a 2021 report from Grand View Research, but artificial limbs have hit a mechanical roadblock. They can’t really account for many intuitive sensations that help us in our everyday lives, such as the way it feels to open and close our hands.
A study subject tests the team’s bionic arm.
Cleveland Clinic
“We’re still using technology that kind of reached its zenith around World War II,” explained Paul Marasco, an associate professor in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and lead author of a study on the new bionic arm published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics.
Enter the bionic arm, a hybrid of metal and realistic skin tones.
Though there are several other teams working on bionic arms, such as the groups behind popular cyberpunk video game Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid, Marasco touts a few advantages of his version.
The sci-fi-looking device translates information directly to and from the brain via powerful robots about half the size of a standard matchbox. While turning thoughts into action, the arm can simultaneously contact the brain to deliver sensations corresponding to that intended action.
Not only does the artificial limb appear to be the first bionic arm to simultaneously test several metrics of its benefits over typical prosthetics, those metrics indicate that it replicates the mechanics of natural arms precisely enough to restore unconscious reflexes in amputees who use it.
We rely on such reflexes every day. For instance, when we pick up a cup of coffee, our hand finds the mug on the table, grips the handle with the right level of firmness and lets go at the perfect time to prevent spills. We can achieve this task thoughtlessly even on the groggiest of mornings because nerves in our arm muscles automatically respond to our choices — in this case, “I must drink that coffee.”
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Traditional prosthetic limbs can’t re-create such seamless movement because they run in manual drive — amputees have to keep their eyes on them at all times and worry about things a nondisabled person usually chalks up to intuition.
After testing the device on two study subjects and using unprecedented analytic tools, the team was excited to discover that the subjects reverted back to reflexive behaviors from before their amputation, including intuitive grip and natural eye movements — they could focus their sight away from the limb.
The metallic arm requires three components: realignment of nerve endings, mini-robots that work as a sort of control center and the bionic arm itself.
First, a surgical procedure takes an amputee’s unused nerve endings within the healthy part of the arm — those that used to be dedicated to removed parts, such as fingertips — and “plugs” them into the site of amputation.
“Your brain is like, ‘My fingers are connected to a muscle,’ [it just doesn’t] know that it’s a muscle on your shoulder versus a muscle down in your forearm,” Marasco explained.
The bionic arm is placed onto the amputation site and little robots are fit into the socket. Those robots press on relevant areas of the site, stimulating the nerve endings that are now attached, when the patient engages the arm.
“You can buzz their muscles and generate these really kind of interesting things — these perceptual illusions of complex hand movement,” Marasco said.
The researchers modified off-the-shelf prosthetic limbs rather than starting from scratch, hoping to fast-track the devices to rehabilitation clinics and make them more cost-effective than traditional prosthetics. People who use those less advanced artificial limbs often overuse the side of their body without an amputation, leading to back or shoulder problems that ultimately require costly medical care.
“These advanced systems are more expensive to fit to start with, but if you use them, they don’t injure you, because you don’t have to account for them,” Marasco said. “This is going to be something that’s going to cost less money in the future.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
