God can't heal amputees, but DARPA can.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/14/robotic-hand-wired-directly-into-brain-feel-again-darpa

A new advanced robotic hand that is wired directly into the brain has been successfully tested, allowing paralysed man to “feel”.

The hand, developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins university, is part of a research project into advanced replacement limbs funded by the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).

The 28-year-old man, who has been paralysed for more than a decade after a spinal-cord injury, had electrodes from the prosthetic hand inserted into his sensory and motor cortexes. This allowed him to both control the hand with thought and sense when the fingers of the hand were touched individually.

Sensors in the hand detect pressure applied to any of the fingers and create electrical signals to mimic touch sensations. When blindfolded, the volunteer could determine which finger on the hand was touched with nearly 100% accuracy, according to Darpa.

“At one point, instead of pressing one finger, the team decided to press two without telling him,” Darpa program manager Justin Sanchez said. “He responded in jest asking whether somebody was trying to play a trick on him. That is when we knew that the feelings he was perceiving through the robotic hand were near-natural.”

Sanchez added: “Prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by thoughts are showing great promise, but without feedback from signals traveling back to the brain it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements.”

By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain, this work shows the potential for seamless biotechnological restoration of near-natural function. We’ve completed the circuit.”

The hand and the neurotechnologies on which it relies are hoped to allow those who have lost limbs to not only gain fully functioning replacements but also the level of control that can only be offered with sensation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xynE-43trQg

Might not be too long before we're pouring our brains into computers. And I do not feel like that's a bad thing.

[Hydra009]

Careful there, Hijiri.  Pointing out that DARPA research occasionally comes up with something imminently useful is tantamount to being a pro-military apologist.  :P

But yeah, great find.  These sorts of projects will undoubtedly vastly improve prosthetics and might even herald a new age of mind-machine integration that we can hardly imagine...yet.

[TomFoolery]

That is way cool. Whenever someone tells me about the miracles of Jesus, I very often think of advances in modern medicine and how we've pretty much caught up to everything Jesus has done.

We can bring the dead back to life.
http://www.wired.com/2014/07/revive-the-dead/

We can make the lame to walk.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29645760

Antibiotics have cured millions of leprosy.
http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Jh2988e/5.html

Prosthetic development does touch pretty dear to my heart though. I had a friend lose a leg in a car accident and two other people I knew lose limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of them lost his right arm below the elbow, and you don't realize how intricate a hand really is and how dextrous the work it performs really is until you don't have one anymore. 

[peacewithoutgod]

This is really amazing stuff - when I saw that idea in a Star Wars movie as a kid, I thought it would always be a sci-fi fantasy while I was still living. I am really happy for those who benefit from this technology, which I hope will soon include everyone who loses a limb by any cause. I simply can't imagine life with a missing limb, especially an arm - that would make doing the most simple, basic things impossible!

[dtq123]

DerpA can do anything!