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Category: transhumanism – Page 38

Extreme Bionics: Sculpting Human Physiology

Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador interviews Dr. Hugh Herr, Associate Professor MIT Media Lab and head of the Biomechatronics group, @MIT Media Lab.

Ira Pastor comments:

Dr. Hugh Herr, is Associate Professor MIT Media Lab, heads the Biomechatronics group at the MIT Media Lab, as well as the Center for Extreme Bionics at MIT, and is creating bionic limbs that emulate the function of natural limbs.

In 2011, TIME magazine coined him the “Leader of the Bionic Age” because of his revolutionary work in the emerging field of biomechatronics – technology that marries human physiology with electromechanics.

A double amputee himself, Dr Herr is responsible for breakthrough advances in bionic limbs that provide greater mobility and new hope to those with physical disabilities. He is the author and co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and patents, chronicling the science and technology behind his many innovations. These publications span the scientific fields of biomechanics and biological motion control, as well as the technological innovations of human rehabilitation and augmentation technologies.

Dr. Herr’s Biomechatronics group has developed gait-adaptive knee prostheses for transfemoral amputees and variable impedance ankle-foot orthoses for patients suffering from drop foot, a gait pathology caused by stroke, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis. He has also designed his own bionic limbs, the world’s first bionic lower leg called the BiOM Ankle System.

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Maverick Life: Who wants to live forever? (The immortal hydra already does)

“Who are we? What are we composed of? What is matter? What does matter? Is the body just a vessel with an expiration date?” asks American rapper GZA from Wu-Tang Clan, in Liquid Science, the show about science and imagination he hosts on Red Bull TV. In this episode, GZA is on a “quest to understand the human desire to live forever”.

Trying to find answers to such questions is nothing new. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post titled ‘‘Transhumanist’ eternal life? No thanks, I’d rather learn not to fear death’, Arthur C Brooks explains that, back in the fifth century before Christ, Greek historian Herodotus wrote about “a race of people in northern Africa who, according to local lore, never seemed to age”.

Eternal youth and immortality have always fascinated humanity, but we’ve not had much success finding them. Until now.

Columbia Professor: There’s a 50% Chance We’re Living in a Simulation

Are we in a simulation?

In an influential 2003 paper, University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom laid out the possibility that our reality is a computer simulation dreamed up by a highly advanced civilization. In the paper, he argued that at least one of three propositions must be true:

  1. Civilizations usually go extinct before developing the capability of creating reality simulations.
  2. Advanced civilizations usually have no interest in creating reality simulations.
  3. We’re almost certainly living inside a computer simulation.
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