A RIVER OF WASTE

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

THE SHOW MUST GO ON ...

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• And some close-ups. This is a really HUGE pic
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CREATING THE BIONIC MAN

Science had better get a move on, Lee Majors is 73..

 

Would you consider cutting off your own appendage? After a car crash 12 years ago Nicola Wilding, 35, lost all use of her right hand. According to reports this week, she is now hoping to have the hand removed completely and replaced with a bionic prosthesis.

The bionic hand would move, grip and even accomplish intricate tasks like opening a bottle and tying a shoelace, all controlled by electrical impulses from Nicola's own brain.

Which just shows how far bionics have come in the last few years. So how many other body parts can we now replace with complex bionic or robotic components? Or to put it another way, how far are we away from making a real Bionic Man?

 

Bionic and artificial eyes

In the Six Million Dollar Man (a 1970s TV series, for those who don't know), the super-enhanced hero famously had an artificial eye that could see for miles. We're not there yet, but clinical trials in Germany and the UK on an artificial eye suggest that in the future we could be routinely restoring sight to the blind.

The artificial eye is, in effect, a light-sensitive chip implanted behind the retina, which converts light into electrical impulses that are sent to the brain for interpretation.
On MSN Him: Famous women with beautiful eyes

 

So far, the artificial eye has successfully restored some sight to several patients who were completely blind. They could read the time and make out basic shapes. What they see is all pretty vague and grainy at the moment, but scientists are already working on a more refined version.

And intriguingly, there are also ways to enhance normal sight. Artificial lenses with microscopic circuits that include a zoom function are already in development. It may soon be possible to project maps, directions and other information onto a lens-like display that doesn't interfere with normal vision.
On Bing: More about the artificial eye




Kevin Kolczynski-Associated Press

Artificial eyes reached popular imagination in the Terminator films, but they're increasingly possible

Artificial hearts

Implanted pumps have been used for years to keep patients alive while they wait for heart transplants, but the longest anyone has survived on one is three years.

But one French company has produced a fully functioning heart that could replace the organ altogether. It works just like a human heart, drawing in blood and pumping it into arteries that transport it around the body. Matthew Green was the first UK patient to go home with a Total Artificial Heart after an operation at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire at the end of 2011. It cost £100,000.

And if you think about it, a perfect artificial heart opens up other possibilities. With the end of heart disease, how long could people live? And could a mechanical heart lead to significant athletic advances?
On MSN Him: Why do some young men have heart problems?

Adam Hunger-Associated Press

These days artificial hearts are a reality, posing the possibility of extending human life by years

Bionic arms

Bionic arms are already available that allow users to perform intricate tasks like picking up a grape and tying a shoelace, but they require training. Users tense different muscles in the upper arm to control the movements of the prosthetic forearm and hand.

But advances already in the pipeline could make this seem like quite a crude control system. Researchers are working on limbs that can pick up the electrical signals sent by the brain when it thinks about picking something up or touching something. In effect, the prosthetic limb would be controlled by the brain in the way a natural limb is.

One difference, of course, is that, theoretically, an artificial limb could be made stronger than a normal one, leading to the possibility of human enhancement - rather than just human repair - through robotics.
On Bing: more about prosthetics

Artificial legs

It's not that long ago that people who lost a leg were given a wooden replacement and a walking stick. Today they may be given a Genium, an artificial leg that boasts seven sensors, an on-board computer, a mobile motorised knee joint and a series of hydraulic valves. The leg responds differently to walking backwards, walking up stairs and walking at faster or slower speeds. Users can climb ladders, ride bikes and even ski. In effect, it's the closest we've yet come to something that mimics the movements of a real human leg, and all for a fairly reasonable £50,000.

Skin

Even the most advanced prosthetic arms, hands and legs suffer one major drawback. You can't feel what you're touching. Hot or cold, wet or dry, rough or smooth - all remain a mystery to the artificial touch.

Well, they do for now. But scientists in both America and Italy have been working on a synthetic skin that includes a sense of touch. The 'skin' - effectively a web of sensors woven into a flexible plastic - was originally designed for robots, but its use in human prosthetics is already being explored. One possibility for the future is an artificial skin that is tougher than its natural counterpart, and better able to cope with high temperatures or physical punishment.

David Hanson-Associated Press

These days the talk is of robotics rather than prosthetics

Robotics v prosthetics

For paralysed people or the elderly with mobility problems the only solution used to be a wheelchair. But now bionic 'exoskeletons' like the Rex, developed by an American company, are allowing the wheelchair bound to stand and walk around.

Rex is a robotic - rather than prosthetic - leg replacement. It is fitted to a user who then controls 29 on-board computer processors with a joystick. Users can sit, stand, turn, walk and climb stairs with just a nudge of the control.

But robotic legs are not just for the disabled. Full body exoskeletons were originally designed for military use, turning ordinary grunts into super soldiers who could carry heavier loads over longer distances. Military trials are still being undertaken.

Brains

If there is one human 'component' we could never replace it's the brain, of course, the hugely complex originator of thoughts, feelings, actions, and a sense of who we are.

But scientists are looking at ways to replace those bits of the brain that may have been lost or damaged through disease or accident. For example, it's been shown that electrodes planted deep within the brain can help disabled people to walk.

American scientists have also been experimenting with using a microchip to restore memory function to people who have lost it due to a stroke, accident or Alzheimer's disease. The chip, which has only been tested on rats so far, would encode memories that would be passed to other areas of the brain for storage.

So what's next?

At the moment most advances in artificial limbs and organs are for medical use: they aim to restore something that is lost. But they also open up the intriguing possibility of enhancing something that is already there. Military and commercial uses for bionics are currently being explored, and though we may be a long way from a truly bionic man, we may not be far from a seriously enhanced super-human, who can see further, run faster and carry more than normal physiology would allow.

DANCING IN THE DARK 12

 

12 GREAT MOVIES THE CRITICS GOT DEAD WRONG

If you’ve paid much attention to film festival coverage over the past few months, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about a film called The Raid (it was later given the rather silly subtitle Redemption, though I’ll be damned if I recall anybody being redeemed in it). It screened at Toronto, Sundance, and SXSW, and it is a knockout — a powder keg of pure action, done with deadpan humor and hyperkinetic style. I saw it at an all-media screening at Sundance, and even among that jaded group, the audience literally gasped at loud at several points, and burst into applause at the end. It’s terrific cinema.

And that’s why so many people who have seen it are losing their shit over Roger Ebert’s inexplicable one-star review of the movie, which went online last night. He complains about the film’s “wall-to-wall violence,” cracks that “if I estimated the film has 10 minutes of dialogue, that would be generous,” and says that the picture is “almost brutally cynical in its approach.” This coming from a guy who gave three stars to Transformers and most of the Fast/Furious franchise.

Then again, as much as we love Mr. Ebert, this isn’t the first time he got a great movie dead wrong. His one-star pan of Blue Velvet is still a head-scratcher; ditto the single star he awardedWet Hot American Summer. And don’t even get us started on that two-star review of the originalDie Hard. The point is, sometimes the critics just plain get it wrong. After the jump, we’ll take a look at a dozen classic movies, and the scribes who blew the call on them.

The General

“This is by no means so good as Mr. Keaton’s previous efforts. Here he is more the acrobat than the clown, and his vehicle might be described as a mixture of cast iron and jelly.” – Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times

“Long and tedious — the least funny thing Buster Keaton has ever done.” — The New York Herald-Tribune

“[A] pretty trite and stodgy piece of screenfare, a rehash, pretentiously garnered of any old two-reel chase comedy…. The audience received The General with polite attention, occasionally a laugh, and occasionally a yawn. Disappointing.” — The New York Daily Telegraph

“Slow, very slow…. [P]ull yourself together, Buster. That’s all.” – The New York Daily Mirror

Metropolis

“It is a technical marvel with feet of clay, a picture as soulless as the manufactured woman of its story. Its scenes bristle with cinematic imagination, with hordes of men and women and astounding stage settings. It is hardly a film to be judged by its narrative, for despite the fantastic nature of the story, it is, on the whole, unconvincing, lacking in suspense and at times extravagantly theatric.” – Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times

The Wizard of Oz

“I sat cringing before M-G-M’s Technicolor production of The Wizard of Oz, which displays no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity… I don’t like the Singer Midgets under any circumstances, but I found them especially bothersome in Technicolor… I say it’s a stinkeroo.” –Russell Maloney, The New Yorker

Citizen Kane

“I thought the photography quite good, but nothing to write to Moscow about, the acting middling, and the whole thing a little dull…Mr. Welles’s high-brow direction is of that super-clever order which prevents you from seeing what that which is being directed is all about.” – James Agate, The Sunday Times

“The picture is very exciting to anyone who gets excited about how things are done in the movies… and in these things there is no doubt the picture is dramatic. But what goes on between the dramatic high points, the story? No. What goes on is talk and more talk. And while the stage may stand for this, the movies don’t.” – Otis Ferguson, The New Republic

The Third Man

“The Third Man‘s murky, familiar mood springs chiefly from Graham Greene’s script, which proves again that he is an uncinematic snob who has robbed the early Hitchcock of everything but his genius. Living off tension maneuvers which Hitchcock wore out, Greene crosses each event with one bothersome nonentity (a Crisco-hipped porter; schmoo-faced child) tossed in without insight, so that the script crawls with annoying bugs.” – Manny Farber, The Nation

All About Eve

“The bitchiest fabrication since Mrs. Luce’s ‘The Women.’ It is not true, as you may have heard, that All About Eve is a great picture and proof that Hollywood has grown up overnight. Its highly polished, often witty surface hides an unenterprising plot and some preposterous human behavior.” – Richard Hatch, The New Republic

Bonnie and Clyde

“It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cutups inThoroughly Modern Millie… This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth. And it leaves an astonished critic wondering just what purpose Mr. Penn and Mr. Beatty think they serve with this strangely antique, sentimental claptrap…” – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

The Graduate

“The Graduate only wants to succeed and that’s fundamentally what’s the matter with it. There is a pause for a laugh after the mention of ‘Berkeley’ that is an unmistakable sign of hunger for success; this kind of movie-making shifts values, shifts focus, shifts emphasis, shifts everything for a sure-fire response. Mike Nichols’ ‘gift’ is that be lets the audience direct him; this is demagoguery in the arts.” – Pauline Kael, Harper’s

The Godfather Part II

“It’s a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from leftover parts. It talks. It moves in fits and starts but it has no mind of its own. Occasionally it repeats a point made in The Godfather(organized crime is just another kind of American business, say) but its insights are fairly lame at this point. The Godfather, Part II, which opened yesterday at five theaters, is not very far along before one realizes that it hasn’t anything more to say. Everything of any interest was thoroughly covered in the original film, but like many people who have nothing to say, Part II won’t shut up… Looking very expensive but spiritually desperate, Part II has the air of a very long, very elaborate revue sketch.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Annie Hall

“With Annie Hall, Woody Allen has truly underreached himself… his new film is painful in three separate ways: as unfunny comedy, poor moviemaking, and embarrassing self-revelation… It is a film so shapeless, sprawling, repetitious, and aimless as to seem to beg for oblivion. At this, it is successful.” – John Simon, New York

“If you can forgive the fact that it’s a ragbag of half-digested intellectual ideas dressed up with trendy intellectual references, you should have a good laugh.” — Nigel Floyd, TimeOut Film Guide, Seventh Edition (1999)

Apocalypse Now

“Apocalypse Now is a dumb movie that could have been made only by an intelligent and talented man. It pushes its egregiousness with such conviction and technical sophistication that, upon first viewing, I immediately resolved to withhold firm judgment until I’d seen the film again: perhaps I’d missed some crucial irony, some ingenious framework that, properly understood, would convert apparent asininity to audacity. I didn’t find it. It isn’t there.” – Richard T. Jameson, The Weekly (Seattle)

Malcolm X

“[Denzel] Washington comes off petty — lukewarm rather than hot, angry, calculating, intimidating, brilliant, ornery, or, in a word, undeniable. [Spike] Lee has blanded out Malcolm X’s character to make him worthy of a big budget movie that could recoup its cost by attracting (but not offending) millions of viewers… The only way to redeem this scandalous sellout would be to radicalize moviegoing and movie watching… With no formal innovations or controversial content, Lee’s film is a setback to all the artistic advances of the hiphop era. Let the mourning begin.” – Armond White, The City Sun