Week 13

In this week's session of TWC...it's our final and last session(12). Similar to the week before, we have case presentations, Group e presented on music history and their trends and impacts, Group f presented on vaccines, group g presented on technology and food, which also included food security and such. The last group presented on crime tracking. The most interesting topic i found in this session is music because it is very different and un-alike from the other topics. I'm also interested in seeing how the music devices improved over the years. This session's presentation seems much better as it is the second part of presentations and the class it seems has become more comfortable with the presentations.

Week 12

We have finally come to the final presentations from each of the group. In this week's TWC session, a total of 4 groups presented and were given comments on. There was Group A who did a project on e-business and online shopping. The difference between the traditional brick and mortar business model compared to the online sensation. The next group was group B who did a project on online dating, finding love online. This group talked a lot about the services e-dating websites have, the history of e-dating and also the impacts on us as we get more and more exposed to online dating The trend towards this is believed to be positive and that more people might do e-dating but the fear that we would lose ourselves in the sense that we might only become able to communicate only through the computer and online, we might lose the competence in face-to-face interaction. The next group c was mine, we did a project on kinectic technology and here's the link to our website: http://www.wix.com/jjwses/twc-2011. we talked about the past present and future of kinectic technology and the trend shows that we would be moving towards a self-sufficient model, meaning to say that kinectic energy would be harnessed on an individual level and not mass produced. Do check out our website as there are many interesting innovations such as the windshirts, tiles and resonance harvester. The last group that presented did a project on gm-food. It was rather a novel idea of them to bring 2 different rices to allow us to try to taste the difference. But they lacked the ability to prove that one of the rice was not gm-food, and only the TA tried them. Overall, we could see that all of us put effort into doing up the website but we still have much to learn and explore to be able to do up the website and ensure coherence, fluency and having enough content and background information so that new readers will be able to catch what we are trying to put across:)

Week 11

In this week's session of TWC, we discussed some drivers for technology assessment and forecasting. First off we have exponential growth in the range of new technologies with potential world changing significance, the need to gain an understanding of what kinds of changes a new technology innovation might bring in different aspects, the need to prioritize in deciding whether and when to invest in R & D of new innovations and technologies and lastly the need to prioritize, given the limited resources on whether and when to implement and use new innovations and technologies which can be especially important in developing countries.

I liked the session as we discussed many amazing possibilities about the innovations and energy creation that fascinates me. I would rate this session a 8 out of 10 as we were able to talk about anything new and innovative and world changing.

Week 10

In this week's session of TWC, the topic we discussed was Emerging and future technologies. I may or may not have mentioned this before the quote by George Bernard Shaw "You see things; and you say,'Why?' But i dream things that never were; and I say,'Why not?'". This quote is about making things that are seemingly impossible possible. Another quote by Albert Einstein: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." This shows us the difference in imagination and knowledge as well as the importance of having imagination such that we would constantly strive towards something greater than what we already have.

Some of the interesting videos showed today depicted some very innovative and interesting activities. One of which was plastic logic, a company that specializes in plastic technology, currently enhancing plastics to be able to take over silicon. They have also invented flexible screens from plastics, i.e. the flexible ebook. There comes great and many possibilities with this flexible screen as so many everyday devices that have a digital screens which we would like to be unbreakable. The flexible quality of the plastics used make this possible. When using high-tech, thin and fragile devices such as the ipad need not be so worrisome in the future.

Drivers for development of emerging and future technologies are:

• unmet market opportunity and need-this drives companies to want to fulfill this gap to capture the economic benefits and thus resulting in new innovations.
  
• growing body of scientific and technology knowledge. The ever increasing wealth of knowledge that makes technology that were inconceivable even 10 years ago increasingly possible. This also includes new insights and discoveries that may often lead to previously unimagined needs.
• supply can sometimes create demand-where people dun realize they need it until they experience it such as the walkman or the iphone. As the late Steve Jobs use to say in response to the amount of market research that went into the ipad: "None. It's not the consumers' job to know what they want." This driver is very true for many of the apple products available.
• Mass media and advertising-changes the perceptions of need, affecting what we perceive as cool or what's not.
• lastly the confluence of the four smarts(smart people, smart ideas, smart money, smart alliances and partnerships)

The bottomline message for today is: "if you can imagine it, you can make it happen!"

Another interesting distinction that was made in today's session was the difference between sales and marketing. Sales is about pushing products to consumers while advertising is about pulling consumers to really want to have your product. Today i also learned of another reality, augmented reality. this refers to technology that puts a layer of information over the existing reality that we see. I like this session of TWC and would rate it an 8 as it explores the interesting and unbounded possibilities of technology:)

Week 9

In this week's session of TWC, the topic discussed was Energy and World Change(Past, Present and Future). As with most of the sessions, quotes were abundant. However for this week, the quote is rather weird, in the sense that, singapore is being mentioned alongside america. The quote:“IF EVERYONE CONSUMED AS MUCH ENERGY AS THE AVERAGE SINGAPOREAN AND U.S. RESIDENT, THE WORLD’S OIL RESERVES WOULD BE DEPLETED IN 9 YEARS”. I never thought that singapore would be a high consumer of energy, as in, i know singapore consumes a lot of energy but i never thought that we could be compared with america, we being an asian country( asian countries generally are more conservative and thrifty).

There is growing need for energy as populations grow and we use new technology that uses energy. With such a great demand, many renewable energies are being tapped into such as methane,geothermal and more importantly solar. I think that solar is really important as Earth is sitting in the luxury band in the solar system. mars is too cold and venus is too hot. Though with differing rates at different parts of earth, we actually get a lot of sun light. Many of us in the class also think that singapore has been losing out a lot by not hopping onto the solar bandwagon when it initially started. We constantly complain for the heat and the sunlight in singapore but we do not really make use of this feature here in singapore.

The presentations in todays class were about exploring renewable energy, the storage of energy and also the stands of world leaders towards adopting these green energies that generally take a decade for it to pay off itself. As much as the class would like all these green initiatives to be implemented, we are generally helpless unless we can actually become a world leader and make real changes. People like to be pushed and they can only be pushed or pulled with policies that give them the incentive to do so. Many of us think that we would move only when we are showed the direction to go, when certain amount of returns are guaranteed. An interesting policy Germany has placed is the money you get for putting power back into the country's grid. If we harvest energy and have excess the country would pay the individual for it. And this actually motivate them to make energy as the price offer is not too bad. Normally the net effect of using and selling the energy, would result in families earning. Unfortunately, singapore does not have this feature of our power grid. Otherwise, i would gladly buy a cycling machine at home and cycle to manufacture some form of electrical energy to be sold into the power grid.

I would rate this session of TWC a 9 out of 10 thanks to the interesting articles and topics as well as the ability to end on time:)

Draft - DARPA's Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm

Executive Summary

Prosthetics have been around for the longest time and is slowly and gradually becoming a part of our everyday lives. We may be fortunate that we do not see the limbless occasionally or at all but we cannot deny the fact that prosthetics is something that is used as a measure of returning the ability to walk and hold to amputees.

For the times that have passed, prosthetics have been progressing rather slowly as its design and usage evolved over last 3000 years. From the simplest strap on toe, to the wood pegs as legs for Pirates and hammer axes for Vikings, to the modern day prosthetic arm. There has always been slow progress as the materials used were limited to what people of the time could find, iron or wood. However as humans become more intelligent and was able to gather new and better resources, the boundaries of prosthetics surged beyond.

Prosthetics used to only have one purpose that is to hide the missing limb. Similarly, as time progressed, people wanted more out of prosthetics, people wanted to move the prosthetics, people wanted to hold and grab with the prosthetics. So the functionalities of prosthetics slowly stack up and pile. Finally, we have DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm so that amputees are able to move their prosthetic arm just by thinking. Also, the design of the arm is allows the arm to move and twist in 27 different ways, as life-like as a real arm. Unfortunately, this product will not be in the market for another 4 years.

Aside from the Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm, some other researches are being done that in a way complement each other and might one day be combined and integrated to become an even more useful and complete product. Some of these researches which will be mentioned in detail include research into the power source of prosthetics, the attachment of prosthetics to the human body and the sense of touch in prosthetics.

Looking out to the future, we can expect many innovative and revolutionary products concerning prosthetics that would be in the market. Needless to say, DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm is going to be among them. We have to however consider some of the limitations and discriminating view that some people might have towards prosthetics whether positively or negatively.

Background Information

Prosthetics is a branch of medical surgery that deals with the replacement of missing limbs with artificial substitutes. Over the years, as prosthetics specialist become more proficient at ‘repairing’ and ‘replacing’ parts of the human body with artificial substitutes, the scope to which the parts of human bodies fall under become much larger. At the beginning, it was merely fingers or toes, it progressed to arms and legs. Now bones have joined the ranks and even failing hearts of humans have been replaced with artificial hearts.

The use of prosthetics has mainly been to replace lost limbs. In the past, it was used merely to hide the missing limb as it was considered an embarrassing deformity. However, as time progressed, people saw the need and convenience for these prosthetic replacements to have more functions then just display. Next, came along prosthetics fashioned into hooks and clamps to enable carrying and grabbing things. But even these were not enough for insatiable humans who strived to improve more and finally invented the Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm in 2010, by Defense Advanced Researched Projects Agency (DARPA).

DARPA is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense. DARPA is responsible for the development of new technology to be used by the military. The Mind-Controlled Prosthetics Arm is a product of the Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program run by DARPA. The prosthetic arm by DARPA is unlike any other prosthetic arm the world has ever seen. Other than its physical appearance, it functions very much like the normal human arm. It has the ability to rotate, bend and twist in 27 different ways, with fingers that can move independently of each other. These movements are not done with the help of cables and strings but with the help of a neural chip implanted into the patient’s brain. Also, electrodes will be implanted to the nervous system of the remaining arm so that the prosthetic arm could be connected to the patient’s nervous system. The neural interface will be able to read the neural pulses created when the brain thinks, captures the information and make the artificial arm move as instructed.

DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm was created over the past 5 years and is now currently undergoing human trials. It is expected to be out in the market in another 4-5 years time. An issue DARPA’s scientists anticipate with this invention is the maintenance the micro-neural chip over long periods of time. As DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm still has some time to get into the mainstream, it remains to be an evolutionary innovation that has yet to come.

Historical Perspective

Prostheses have been around for the longest time and can come in the simplest of forms. The oldest known splint that was dug up by archaeologists dates back to the fifth Egyptian Dynasty (2750-2625 B.C.). Ancient writing arts have contained references to prostheses in poems and stories but the Greek and Roman historians recorded the use of prosthetic limbs. Herodotus, a famous and ancient Greek historian, who lived from (484-425 B.C.), recorded a story of a prisoner who in order to escape from his chains, cut off his foot which he later replaced with a wooden leg.

The 2 best known periods of prosthetics would undoubtedly be the period of the Vikings and the seafaring Pirates. Vikings and Pirates have a history of losing limbs in their many battles. Pirates replace their lost legs with wooden cored pegs and their hands with a hook being the most common. Vikings on the other hand prefer to replace their hands with axes or hammers. In such cases prosthetics seem to give them an edge over their counterparts.

In addition, until recently, most of the prosthetics found where fashioned out of easily found materials, such as wood and metal. These prosthetics were then secured to the remaining human body with leather and straps. These materials tend to be heavy and prove to be a hassle for the user. Metals have the problem of heating up easily while wood has the problem of it being flammable and it may decay over time. This resulted in people trying out new materials such as gold, silver, porcelain and even glass. In more recent times, with the advancement of technology, plastics were invented and pushed the possibilities of using prosthetics for medical purposes further.

Even though prosthetics seem to be very useful in past for replacing lost limbs, it brings along several disadvantages. As mentioned before, metal and wood have their problems of being heavy and flammable. Metals are heavy, wood is flammable, while porcelain and glass are durable enough for the long term use as prosthetics. Another limitation of prosthetics of the past would be the discomfort and irritation it brings along with wearing them using leather straps. Specialists of today all seek to improve the conditions of using prosthetics by human to do his everyday activities.

The man considered to be the Father of prosthetics was French military doctor and surgeon, Ambroise Pare (1510-1590), who introduced amputation as a lifesaving measure in medicine in 1529. Thereafter, Pare started studying prosthetics in a scientific measure. Pare later discovered and invented prosthetic limbs with features like the hinged mechanical hand, locking knees and specialized harnesses for attachment purposes. Later in 1960, a Dutch surgeon, Pieter Verduyn invented lower leg prosthesis with hinge. These inventions are considered cream of the crop at that time and it is no wonder that many of the prosthetics around today still bear a resemblance to the works of Pare and Verduyn.

In the case of design of the prosthetics, we can see a clear progress from simple shapes to complex joints and twists. Before, prosthetics involved the simple attachment of hooks, axes or hammers in place of the lost limb. Next we have socket prosthetics and hinged joints. Generally, we can see that the design of the prosthetics is moving towards and becoming more human form, and as these designs become more human-like, it becomes generally true to say that the functions increases. In a few years time, we will have DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm which is said to be able to resume all bodily functions of the limb.

The proliferation of prosthetics however had to be in the 19^th century when surgeries could be conducted in stable, clean and bacteria-free conditions. Before, patients that had to undergo amputation died not due to the lost of blood but due to bacterial or germ infection. Only in clean conditions did most of the amputation procedures complete with success, and only then did the use of prosthetics become commonplace.

Current Situation

Originally, prosthetics were used simply to replace a missing limb but now they help people to lead active lives. According to Dennis Wood, full-time staff of Orthotic/Prosthetic Technology at Baker College of Flint, there is also a rising and unsatisfied need for prosthetic care. In the United States, 1 out of every 200 people has had an amputation. In 2009, 1.7 million people live with limb loss in the United States but this figure is expected to hit 2.4 million by the year 2020.

In modern times such as ours, with advance medical technology, amputations as a result of cancer and accidents are decreasing but lower-limb amputations as a result of complications due to diabetes are increasing. The number of people living with diabetes in the United States is around 21 million, similarly, this figure is estimated to hit 29 million by the year 2050. We can see that the number and the need for prosthetics is likely to only increase in the near future.

Another aspect that contributes to the increase in demand of prosthetics is the military. Recent deployments of American troops into the Middle East have resulted in large numbers of soldiers requiring amputations. These soldiers would require prosthetics to resume more of their normal day to day activities. In May of 2008 alone, there have been over 800 cases of limb amputations from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prosthetics can help these people lead a much more fulfilling life. Prosthetics is not just about replacing the lost limb, but more importantly, it removes the need to use the wheelchair or crutches. Studies have showed that using prosthetic legs to walk uses less energy than using crutches. In the case of the wheelchair bound, using prosthetics allows one to have greater independence in terms of moving around. Even though to a double amputee, the comfort of the wheelchair might be the preferred choice, prosthetic legs would allow them to climb the stairs and also have access to areas that are not yet handicapped friendly.

Prosthetics also help the amputees to recover psychologically. Surveys, conducted by the Amputee Coalition of America, reveal that mastering the use of prosthetic limbs allows amputees to gain a better psychological outlook on life. They also feel less embarrassed and discomfort about their condition as they become better at blending into the crowd with their prosthetics.

Moving onto the physical aspects of prosthetics, we have to consider the material it is made of and how it is worn by the amputee. In terms of materials, we put a number of materials into the prosthetics as compared to only one in the past. In the past, prosthetics were made solely of wood, or metal or any material. But in today’s context, we have found methods to combine different materials to make prosthetics stronger. The common form of prosthetics nowadays is made of carbon-fibre and covered with a foam-like material, they can be coloured to match the skin of the amputee to allow the prosthetic to seem like an extension of the human body.

Similarly, how prosthetics are attached to the human body has been improved. Before, prosthetics were only fitted on with leather straps. Today, prosthetics could be fitted onto the residual limb using a suction method, the harness system or fitted directly to the bone. The suction method involves the residual limb fitting perfectly into the socket of the prosthetic limb with an airtight seal to prevent both parts from separating. British physicians came up with the method of implanting metal rods into the bone of the residual limb in order to hold the prosthetic limb. This was achieved with the knowledge of how antlers are able to grow out of deer’s head and skin. The physicians were able to make skin grow over to metal rods to prevent infection at the exposed area. The harness system is very much like in the olden days as belts, straps and sleeves are used to fasten the prosthetics.

Another feature of today’s prosthetics is that they contain some form of power source or battery to enable everyday use. These power sources allow mechanical prosthetics to do simple tasks such as pinching and holding. Despite this advantage, it proves a challenge for scientists to create a renewable source of energy to be fitted into prosthetics so that there will be no need for the replacement of batteries. There has however been a breakthrough in prosthetics concerning the foot. Mechanical engineers at University of Michigan invented the Energy-Recycling Foot to help reduce the energy required by amputees to use foot prosthetics. The Energy-Recycling Foot captures energy with every footstep and releases it as the prosthetic foot lifts off the ground so that it is pushed forward, aiding the walking process.

This brings us to a problem with modern prosthetics. As the design of prosthetics become more complex and the functionalities stack up, there is greater need for an energy source strong enough to power the different movements. Another concern is the storage and weight of the increase in the energy source. An attempt at shrinking the rocket’s energy source to power prosthetic limbs was done by Michael Goldfarb of Vanderbilt University in 2007. Goldfarb’s power source was only as large as a pencil and could lift 20 pound weights at up to 4 times the speed. This development was however met with many obstacles as there were new issues that had to be dealt with such as the heat and noise produced by the power source. Goldfarb’s team of researchers have to continue trials and tests to ensure that the power source was safe to be used by amputees and the people in close proximity to him.

At the same time, a limitation to prosthetics is its ability to have the sense of touch. Restoring the sense of touch is no simple feat due to the fact that one would need to manipulate with nerves that have been missing with the arm. Nevertheless scientists from Northwestern University in Chicago, manage to restore a certain degree of feeling back to the amputee such that they would feel like they still have a real arm. This is rather crucial as amputees with prosthetics need sensory information to determine whether the prosthetic arm is touching or holding anything. Prosthetic users currently can only rely on the sense of sight for such sensory information. Scientists saw the need to improve this feedback of prosthetics, so they implanted nerves of the lost hand into the skin of the chest of the user. After several months of allowing the nerves to grow, 2 patients could tell the difference between textures of sandpaper though with varying sensitivity. It is believed that add combining the sense of sight with touch would greatly enhance the use of prosthetics.

Future Considerations

Given the current successes in the field of prosthetics, it is highly likely that DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm is going to be a revolutionary innovation. One of the researches in Europe has connected the robotic arm to a user who lost his arm and the result was rather spectacular. The arm after having been attached for just a few days, could respond correctly to 95% of all the commands it was given by the user’s brain. This increases the success rate of DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm as it is being tested on 5 patients for a year as we speak.

On the other hand, there may still be issues such as the power needed for DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm to work effectively as well as the issue regarding the insertion of the neural microchip into the amputee’s brain. With regards to the insertion, one needs to consider how long the microchip is going to last in the person’s brain and whether the microchip will need replacement after regular use. As with all computer and microchips, they have a lifespan or roughly 5 years, will these limitations affect the success of this innovation? Also, we need to also consider if the human brain fluids would react adversely with the microchip.

In addition, power seems to be of a greater concern as it directly affects the use of the arm in the short term. If the power source cannot last at least for a day, it would not seems feasible to use this arm as the user would be required to either change its battery regularly or be remove to charged at a charging point. Aside from the arm’s functionalities, this aspect would be a great determinant as to whether the arm would be well received when it hits the market.

However, as mentioned before under the section of “Current Situation”, we already know that a new source of power for prosthetics is being researched and perfected so that it can be implemented and used safely for any activity. At the same time, we have methods to prevent infection as in the case of the metal rods attached to the bones, though somewhat different, we can expect to have improvements in the conditions as to how the neural microchip is going to be attached to the human brain.

We should also note that when the prosthetic arm hits the market, it being novel and revolutionizing how prosthetic arms work, it is likely to cost astronomical. Nevertheless, like most inventions and computer gadgets, give it enough time and its price is likely to fall such that it becomes affordable for the majority. This is likely to happen as we discover newer and cheaper ways of manufacturing such a prosthetic arm, including safer ways to ‘installing’ these arms onto the human body. When such a scenario occurs, prosthetic arms would be commonplace and one no longer need to feel discomfort or embarrassed about one’s disability or handicap.

A beautiful aspect of science and technology is its portability. Meaning to say that applying a newly invented technology to an industry, field or area different than what it was originally for is highly probable. For example, the invention of sonar waves, in can be applied to submarines in the deep sea checking for the depth of the sea floor, it can also be applied to ultrasound scans for babies. In the case of prosthetics however, with the success of DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm, it can be implemented to other parts of the human body. When this happens, it would become very difficult for one to know if a friend is handicapped. This would greatly improve the psychological environment that a handicapped person grows up in. This would in turn greatly improve human relations and standard of living.

As we imagine further, as high technological prosthetic limbs combine normal and part of our everyday lives, would one with prosthetic limbs have an advantage over the average human being. It isn’t hard to imagine, as there are already cases happening now with prosthetic limbs of today. Athletes with prosthetic limbs might have an advantage as prosthetics contain no muscle or human tissue, they would not tire or feel hurt. This advantage can prove to be harmful. Before, the handicapped may be discriminated for their disabilities whereas in the future they might be discriminated for their advantageous leg or arm power. Regardless of whether for better or worse, one should not discriminate at all.

Thinking positively and looking forward, in the future it might be possible that prosthetics be used to replace major injuries. As the aesthetic appearance of prosthetics improve to resemble more humanly, as the functionally aspect of prosthetics become more equal to that of the human, people may become more open to the use of prosthetics. Injuries that take many months to recover would constitute to it being major. For example, in the future, an athlete who tears his muscle or ligament, an alternative to resting for a few months or sewing back the muscle would be to have his limb replaced with prosthetics. This idea might seem a little extreme but looking at how prosthetics is progressing, it is not entirely impossible.

However, if we really do get to the stage where prosthetic technology is so advanced, maybe it would be wise for us to limit the use of prosthetics in replacing limbs. We would not want this technology to be abused such that humans can become cyborgs (half-man-half-robot). Losing a limb would seem fortunate as the victim would have gained an additional ability, the strength of a machine in the prostheses. Criminals would be more difficult to deal with as they can easily become more capable, stronger or faster.

Conclusion

Just like any other technology or product, each has its own evolution and interesting innovations. However, not every innovation is going to be revolutionary. How are we to determine if an innovation is revolutionary? We have to see if the innovation changes the way we do things, if it was a gradual change or a disruptive change. Revolutionary changes are disruptive and force us to drastically change the way things are done, very much like any revolution in history, be it the French Revolution, Hungarian Revolution or the Green Revolution. I believe that, seeing how DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm is turning out, it is going to be a revolutionary innovation.

Given the current situation, with many researches in the world (Europe and America) contributing significantly to the industry and technology of prosthetics, I dare say that it is not too farfetched to hope that DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm really be released into the market in 4 years time, and with amazing response at that. We have researches to deal with the design, researches to deal with the power source of prosthetics and we also have researches to deal with the attachment of prosthetics to the human body. All these researches contribute to making prosthetics more accurate, efficient and less of a hassle.

As mentioned before, the beautiful portability of science and technology. I believe that this is far greater a revolution than the prosthetic arm itself. No doubt that it is going to be revolutionary but think about the greater possibilities when this technology is applied to other areas. If we could control a static arm using our mind, what other things can we actually control with our minds? There are abundant possibilities, in construction, we could operate cranes and forklifts using our mind, in computing, we could very well just be thinking in order to type out an entire research paper. In such a scenario, the boundary between man and machine is going to become blurred and obscured. Many of the science fiction movies that we have been watching might really become a reality in the future.

Finally, evolution is part and parcel of our everyday lives, but revolution is what sets the mood and climax of our lives. Revolutionary innovations such as the DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm, is only going to be a stepping stone to far greater revolutions that mankind is going to experience.

Reference

Mary, B. (n. d.). The History of Prosthetics. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blprosthetic.htm

Dennis, W. (2009, Feb 20). A Career That Turns Disabilities Into Possibilities. Retrieved from http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-1171-Job-Search-Strategies-A-Career-That-Turns-Disabilities-Into-Possibilities/

Doug, H. (2011, May 12). Advantages of Prosthetic Legs. Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/36509-advantages-prosthetic-legs/

Gene, O.(2008, Dec 11). New Prosthesis Attached Directly Into Bone. Retrieved from http://medgadget.com/2008/12/new_prosthesis_attached_directly_into_bone.html

Issac Perry, C. (n.d.). How Prosthetic Limbs Work. Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/prosthetic-limb1.htm

Issac Perry, C. (n.d.). How Prosthetic Limbs Work. Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/prosthetic-limb2.htm

Katie, D. (2010, Jul 15). Human Trials Next for Darpa’s Mind-Controlled Artificial Arm. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/human-trials-ahead-for-darpas-mind-controlled-artificial-arm/

Jeremy, H. (2010, Feb 17). Power-Harvesting Prosthetic Uses Every Footstep to Power the Next. Retrieved from http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/make-every-artificial-footstep-power-step

Ariel, S. (2011, Feb 9) DARPA’s Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm Could be on the Market in Four Years. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/1725799/darpas-mind-controlled-prosthetic-arm-could-be-on-the-market-in-four-years

Vanderbilt University. (2007, Aug 20).Rocket-powered mechanical arm could revolutionize prosthetics. Retrieved from http://www.physorg.com/news106834743.html

Emily, S. (2007, Nov 27). Prosthetic Limbs That Can Feel. Retrieved from http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19759/

Ritu, P. (2011, Feb 28).Mind Controlled Prosthetic Arm by DARPA. Retrieved from http://www.crazyengineers.com/mind-controlled-prosthetic-arm-by-darpa/

Week 7

In this week's session of TWC, the topic discussed bioBusiness revolution: Agribiology, Environmental Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology(Past,Present and Future). Since the topic was regarding environmental life sciences, we watched a video that depicted humans as pests(fleas), living and leeching of earth's resources. It also showed that humans were insatiable and were also exploring the possibilities of exploiting resources of other planets. This scenario seems rather true at least for a few years back. Some years back when humans were not so environmentally friendly, i guess we could really be classified as pests(to earth, in the large and larger pictures) but now, we are becoming more environmentally friendly as we become more aware of the environment and the damage that we are doing to earth.

Also, as technology advances and the knowledge of the land and seeds becomes more complex(the idea of learning more and finding out you know less of the world and wanting to learn more again). Farmers are no longer just farming ignorantly. Farmers now have to calculate different things to ensure the best harvest that he can have. Mixing seeds that repel pests with seeds of crops with high yield, is just a part of what they are required to do now. With this comes the idea of farmers no longer just being a manual labour farming, but becoming specialists - "Farmists".

I rate this session of TWC a 7.5 out of 10 as it relates more closely to our current lives and the topics discussed were more at heart:)