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Robotic Prostheses For Human Faces
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Feb 16, 2009 05:37 PM
from the make-them-wireless-for-fun-and-amusement dept.
from the make-them-wireless-for-fun-and-amusement dept.
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a patent application that suggests implanting polymer muscles beneath the skin of people suffering paralysis of the face to give them control of their features. The technique has already been used successfully to reanimate the eyelids of human cadavers. Movement could be returned to other facial features and even paralyzed limbs in the same way, the surgeons at University of California Davis say. The full patent application is also available on the WIPO site."
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Way cool (Score:5, Funny)
> The technique has already been used successfully to reanimate the eyelids of human cadavers.
That'll make such a great party trick.
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The real trick will be getting the host to let you into the party with a corpse slung over your shoulder.
Re:Way cool (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Halloween (Score:2)
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That'll make such a great party trick.
I was thinking more along the lines of it being the greatest coroner/mortician prank EVER!
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Re:Way cool (Score:5, Funny)
OK, let me correct that statement: this technology seems to have almost no limits in its applications.
Parent
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So you can even give a dead person facial expressions? This technology seems to have no limits in it applications. I mean, I'll bet you could even get Keanu Reeves to display emotions.
(Un)fortunately, he has to be converted into a cadever before it'll work.
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"So you can even give a dead person facial expressions? This technology seems to have no limits in it applications. I mean, I'll bet you could even get Keanu Reeves to display emotions."
(Un)fortunately, he has to be converted into a cadever before it'll work.
Whoa!
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Forget party tricks, how about funeral tricks.
Blinking dead people! (Score:2, Funny)
I for one welcome our blinking undead overlords.
Re:Blinking dead people! (Score:4, Interesting)
Or the rest of Hollywood, for that matter. Cosmetic paralytics like botox give the appearence of fewer wrinkles and stop microexpressions from giving away lies or other unpleasant emotions [boingboing.net], which is funny because they often cause a zombie-like facial expression. See: FoxNews.
Humans are striving to give facial movement to corpses while they give away their own facial expressions to look like corpses.
Parent
Cadaver control? (Score:3, Informative)
The technique has already been used successfully to reanimate the eyelids of human cadavers.
Hmmm. I had no idea that cadavers had the capacity to control robotic eyelids :)
From the abstract:
Metbods: With use of four cadaver heads, an extended upper and lower blepharoplasty incision was used to secure an upper and lower expanded polytetrafluoroethylene implant in the medial orbital wall and tarsal plates. The slings were passed through a hole drilled in the lateral orbital wall or around a titanium screw. Lateral pull on the sling created eyelid closure, and the necessary distance of pull was measured. Results: The eyelid sling mechanism functioned to achieve complete eyelid closure. Less tension was required for eyelid closure when the sling was placed in both eyelids (3 mm of pull instead of 6 mm). Conclusions: The application of artificial muscle to a range of problems that affect both patient morbidity and quality of life is promising. Eyelid closure was created in a cadaver model using a novel sling, but future studies will need to address the feasibility of a prototype artificial muscle eyelid device in humans.
Robotic Prostheses For Human Feces (Score:4, Funny)
This is the advance *I'm* waiting for...
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For some people, the difference is marginal ;)
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What is wrong with my eyes today. First it was the Pornographic Association for the RIAA ad and now I read the headline the same way you did.
Potential here! (Score:5, Funny)
Before you know it, being dead won't be nearly the handicap it is now.
What's that? I missed the point?
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Differently-lifed Americans?
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I have given all of this much thought (Score:2, Troll)
I can't say with 100% certainty how I would feel if I were unfortunate enough to live under circumstances such as these, but I can say that quality of life is an important issue for me as it would be for so many others. People frequently submit DNR orders for just this reason. If for some reason, I cannot move my face muscles and do not somehow acquire better poker playing skills as a result, then I'd say either clone me a new body or let me go. With "W" gone, the way is a little more clear to research w
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I already have a time travel device!
It involves a form of suspended animation. I lay on the device, relax and eventually I wake up somewhere between 6 and 10 hours into the future. I haven't figured out how to travel in the other direction yet but I'm working on it.
Queue the They Might Be Giants (Score:3, Funny)
If I were a carpenter I'd
Hammer on my piglet, I'd
Collect the seven dollars and I'd
Buy a big prosthetic forehead
And wear it on my real head
Everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
Everybody wants prosthetic
Foreheads on their real heads
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I suppose you mean "Cue," but...
how this hell is parent modded offtopic? Did you read the lyrics, or just the subject...? Sheesh.
Rhymes with Prostheses (Score:2, Funny)
You can imagine my relief (pun intended) when I realized the title did not read:
Robotic Prostheses For Human Feces
It could be worse (Score:2)
A few stories below [slashdot.org], I read "The International Federation of Pornographic Industry (IFPI)", which, by the way, seems a quite appropriate description of said federation...
Prosthetic foreheads (Score:2, Funny)
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I call shenanigans. While this is redundant - someone beat you to the reference two posts ago - it's not really offtopic. Someone's modding down based on anti-TMBG bias.
offtopic != unfunny. Mod points are supposed to be based loosely on content (yes, i hear you all laughing), not your opinion of the post. Sigh.
Great (Score:3, Interesting)
BORG or Skynet? Which is coming first?
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Either way, people marking people as Trolls for no good reason is just rude and abusive (of their power to mark "real" trolls).
Why is this patentable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when are surgical procedures patentable? And what are the ethics of patenting this anyway, and likely thereby preventing some people from receiving such treatment, even if it is somehow legal to do so?
Or is the patent specific to the artificial muscles?
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Out of patent by now (Score:2)
Actually, since patents last for only 20 years, likely all that stuff would be in the public domain by now. And we'd have an exact description of how to do it ourselves too, instead of still having to guess at it. As it is, the old fart is keeping it all a trade secret, which is just what patents were supposed to prevent.
On the other hand, I guess 7 of his days in Genesis seem to have been almost 2 billion years each (counting "let there be light" as coinciding with the big bang.) So 20 of his years for the
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Note that it's a patent application. I haven't looked to see if it's patentable, but you can file applications for things that aren't patentable.
The concern about ethics really depends on what control is exerted with the patent. It'd all be speculation, since this isn't even a procedure ready to be used. (For drugs, for example, intellectual property controls back the majority of the drug cost -- so there are reasonable ethical questions. Even with a zero cost due to IP, neither robotic prosthesis nor the s
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RTFA. The surgical process isn't claimed; the polymer muscle and its actuation system are. Just like there are patents on surgical tools and prosthetics, there's a patent for the EAP system.
The only people who would be prevented from receiving such a treatment are people who will have nothing to do with patents at all, in which case they'd never even be in the hospital in the first place.
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Yet the patent brief itself seems to lay claim to the process as well:
Or am I reading too much into this use of the word "methods"? I rather hope I am.
Cheers,
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You are.
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Can you elaborate on that at all? How is the word "methods" being used in the patent brief such that it does not include the medical procedure?
What next? Patented appendectomies? (Score:2)
Sorry to reply to myself, but here is the patent abstract, from the WIPO site linked in the posting:
So it sure sounds like they're patenting the *proce
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It's more like "License my patent, or get sued after the operation and end up paying me somewhat more money than you would have if you'd bought a license."
Limited scope (Score:3, Insightful)
Great (Score:2)
I've seen Robocop (Score:2)
Uncanny Valley (Score:4, Insightful)
Feels like there's a great danger here of falling deep into the uncanny valley [wikipedia.org], especially with facial prosthetics.
Shit (Score:2)
I'm rewriting my will! (Score:3, Funny)
This will be great for meetings... (Score:2)
Heck, you could even hook your eyes up to this, automatic blinking, eyes looking around. I will just have to perfect the *wake up* sensor so I know when I can leave the meeting...
Need my eyes checked... (Score:2)
I thought it read "Robotic Prostitutes for Human Feces." Stop thinking, brain of mine...