In anticipation of our discussion of the cyborg (machine/human mergings), a NYT article on a procedure called targeted muscle reinnervation. The procedure reassigns nerves in an amputated arm to another part of the body, such as the chest. Electrodes are then placed over the chest muscles and the amputee can control the arm by sending signals to the chest muscles that are then relayed to the prosthetic. A revealing quote by Dr. Gerald Loeb, a biomedical engineer at the University of California:
“This is a crucial part, but it’s only one part of many things that comprise normal arm function,” said Dr. Loeb, who wrote an editorial accompanying the article in The Journal of the American Medical Association. “Right now we’re somewhere between the arm in ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ ” which involuntarily jerked into a Nazi salute, “and the Luke Skywalker arm in ‘Star Wars’ where he turns it on and it’s fully naturally functional. I think it’s still going to be many years before all the pieces come together to make a normal functioning arm.”
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
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