Bionic Man

Sunday, 6:23 am

By Kate

Jul

10

2005

I heard this story on Public Radio’s, Weekend America yesterday—about a man, Jesse Sullivan, who lost both arms in an industrial accident. He has been outfitted with two prosthetic arms and one of them is...well...astonishing. By attaching muscles from the shoulder to his chest, somehow the arm/hand is able to feel pressure and sense hot and cold. To move the arm, all he has to do is think about it. His thoughts govern the movement of his bionic arm. Pretty much the same way you and I move our arms. Public Radio’s website also includes a video demonstration of Jesse using his bionic arm. If you don’t want to go to the site, you can just click on this link (RealPlayer) to see Jesse use his arm (high bandwidth) or this low bandwidth video. (They may take 30 seconds or so to load.) You can click this link to hear Jesse’s story (RealPlayer).

Jesse said that he’s happy to be a part of this experiment, not only because this has given most of his life back to him, but think of the possibilities for veterans who have lost limbs. It’s quite an amazing story.