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Immaculate prosthetic limb concept makes combines fun again, discusses the invention of the Immaculate prosthetic limbs. A jewelry designer, Hans Alexander Huseklepp, stylized the Immaculate artificial limb to appear non-human like to avoid the uneasiness of the Uncanny Valley phenomenon with artificial limbs.

A group of researchers at the University of Leicester are looking into ways to improve prosthetics and how the brain controls them. The study is led by a combined effort between Dr.TomMathesonandProfessorRodrigoQuianQuiroga,aProfessorofBioengineering. The team received £800,000 in funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). They are tasked with researching the brain and studying sensory-motor control of the limbs. They will be studying the nerve activity in locusts. The team is hopeful that their research will help them to better understand medical disorders that prevent limb movements. They hope that this will help develop better prosthetics and improve the quality of life of people. The study was posted on the University of Leicester website (http://www.le.ac.uk).

Practice Makes Perfect: Learning Mind Control of Prosthetics, discusses the study of using monkeys' brains to map neural processors for movement of their limbs. Sensors are embedded into the brain and a map is made based upon the electrical activity of neurons as animals are completing motor tasks. The application of this technology would benefit humans with prosthetics that would allow for fluid effortless control of their limbs.

Touch Bionics' i-LIMB was considered one of the top 50 inventions of 2008 in Time Magazine. The i-LIMB has five separately powered digits control by myoelectrics and powered by a lithium-ion battery.

Controversy over Olympian Oscar Pistorius advantage with bionic lower limbs over the other racers.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have successfully implanted a device in a monkey, giving it control to move a mechanical arm with its brain. This technology could assist disabled people and help them to live a normal life. Oscar Pistorius uses carbon fiber-composite legs and is one of the fastest athletes in the world. He wanted to participate in the Beijing Olympics but was rejected because the bionic prosthetics apparently gave him an advantage over normal athletes. This poses one ethical issue if bionics become mainstream. People might decide to get rid of their human legs and replace them with these for an advantage.

"A portable, plugless, brain-to-computer interface using electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes strapped to the scalp has been developed by a team in the US. The device may allow paraplegics and others who have lost control of their limbs to control prosthetic devices and other equipment using their thoughts alone."

What's being study in this article are amputees having the capability to control a robotic arm by rearranging the nerves where the lost limb was. The patients were capable of mimicking hand movements, motions, and picking up different items like a glass, cracker, and a checker rolling on a table. The results were described in Journal of the American Medical Association.

Research on placing microelectrodes on top of the brain instead of being implanted. Useful for people with paralysis.