Robotic Therapy Gets Paralysed Rats Walking and Running

These rats are back in action!

Grégoire Courtine and his team at The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have been using a robotic harness and electro-chemical stimulation to get rats with damaged spinal cords up and running again.
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Technology as Empowerment

Joanne O’Riordan’s Address to the UN

On April 26, 2012, 16 year old Joanne O’Riordan gave a speech to the United Nations for Girls in ICT Day. Although Joanne was born with one of rarest conditions we know of, Total Amelia, her motto in life is no limbs, no limits.
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Fishing for New Ways to Monitor Water Pollution?

The SHOAL project develops robotic fish to help keep our waters clean!

SHOAL is a European research project that aims to produce a network of robotic fish to monitor pollution in aquatic environments.The project is being lead by BMT Group with support from several European universities and institutions which are focused on 5 specific aspects of SHOAL development:
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Up Next… Neo-Humanity?

Check out Russia 2045

Could we reach an age of cibernetic immortality? It’s a controversial question (to say the least) however, Dmitry Itskov is now making it loud and clear that he thinks the answer is yes and the Russian media tycoon doesn’t stand alone in his opinion. By founding the Russia 2045 movement in 2011, Itskov is now supported by a team of over 30 experts including some of Russia’s leading astronauts, physicians, mathematicians, neuroscientists and engineers (oh, and he’s also recieved the thumbs up from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama).
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Robots with Green Thumbs

Could blending living and artificial systems help make agriculture more eco-friendly?

What started out as an undergraduate summer project at the Distributed Robotics Lab (DRL), part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, has now turned into a long-term plan to
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BrainGate2

¨Turning thought into action¨

The Robotic arm moves  a thermos filled with coffee towards Cathy Hutchinson’s  mouth while she imagines carrying out this same motion with the very  hand she has been unable to move for the past fifteen years.
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Robots Get People Walking

Claire Lomas walks the London marathon with the help of a robotic suit

In 2007, accomplished equestrian, Claire Lomas, was told that she would never walk again after a riding accident left her paralysed from the waist down. 5 years later Claire’s about to finish the 2012 London Marathon with the help of a robotic suit.
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The Brain, Music and Artificial Intelligence

The SPECS lab puts their stuff on display in Barcelona!

The Spanish Society of Neuroscience, has declared 2012 Neuroscience Year in Spain. The year-long celebration serves as a way to bring neuroscience to the public and promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge ; a series of exhibitions, conferences, and a variety of other events have been taking place around the country throughout the year.
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What's in Your Magic Bag?

Researchers at MIT envision a bag of tiny machines that can assemble into just about anything…

Remember that scene in the 1964 Mary Poppins film where Julie Andrews manages to retrieve everything from plants to coat hangers out of her hand bag? Well… there’s no magic involved however,   the  Distributed Robotics Lab (DRL) and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence lab (CSAIL) at MIT are currently working on something rather similar.
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