Technology is turning into reality many of the utopias of science fiction and shortens time between what writers imagine and what scientists can do. The latest example is Rex, the first fully bionic man, which apparently has much in common with Steve Austin, the artificial man who starred the seventies television series called The Man of The Six Million.
The bionic man is being built from $1,000,000 of limbs and organs by leading UK roboticists Richard Walker and Matthew Godden. All his vital organs were built in a laboratory and it is considered to be the most complete bionic man achieved by science so far.
This bionic man, on display in the Science Museum in London, has also synthetic blood and robotic limbs. With a face that resembles humanity, Rex incorporates some of the latest advances in prosthetic technology: - A prosthetic foot and ankle developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Hugh Herr), - A SynCardia Systems artificial heart - A bionic ear from Macquaire University in Sydney - An eye made of a camera mounted in Rex's glasses and an artificial kideny from University of California - An artificial trachea, first received by a cancer sufferer in 2011, from Royal Free Hospital, London - A spleen from Yale, Connecticut. - An artificial pancreas from De Montfort University, Leicester One of the experts who participated in its construction, Richard Walker, told the BBC that the result of the work is "very significant", since it has allowed to know "how close are prosthetic technology to rebuild the whole human body." "There are some vital organs missing, like the stomach, but 60 to 70 percent of a human has effectively been rebuilt" said Walker. Bertolt Meyer, one of the creators of Rex who was born without a right hand and wears a bionic prosthesis, said that "the great promise of technology is that it can wipe out disabilities."
However, technology developers claim that not all technology is useful for replacing body parts. For example, hands can not move without bionic human muscle and brain signals. “What we are beginning to achieve is building prostheses which look like human body parts, but we are a long way away from making ones which relay sensory information the way the human body does.” Once medical science improves, as it inevitably will, Meyer says the next step will be tackling the sticky ethical issues which will arise. “Should I be allowed to cut off my real hand and replace it with something, does that give me an unfair advantage over people who cannot afford this?” asks Meyer. “I’m not saying that is going to happen but these are questions that should be on the table before that technology becomes available.”.
