Question: How long do you think itll take to make advance bionics????

Stefan Piatek answered on 16 Mar 2013:

I think someone asked this before but I wish I knew! My guess is in the next couple of decades we’ll see some really great things.

Fantastic question, lots of universities have bio-engineering degrees which seem to be making things for medicine or treating people. There’s a few things that have been made, the fake ears that can hear, people can control a pointer on a screen using their brain or artifical limbs that respond like hands.

There’s lots of science fiction about having brains that can talk to our brain, so we could record everything that we see or be connected to the internet the same way that smartphones are.
I think that we’re a long way off that kind of thing, but something like artificial red blood cells are fairly close and would be really useful.

Controlling things with our minds isn’t too far off either, this lady who is paralysed was able to control a robot arm using her brain! http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/science/bodies-inert-they-moved-a-robot-with-their-minds.html?_r=0 .

It was the first time in 15 years that she could do it! Still quite a way off for having it the same size, and I think that powering it would also be an issue but apparently she could move it very well after training!