Gizmorama - May 19, 2014

Good Morning,

The FDA has given approval to the "Luke", a robotic arm prosthetic controlled by the user's brain. From the DEKA Arm System, this is an amazing invention that will help so many and will eventually lead to many other developments in modern prostheses.

Learn about this interesting story and more from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- 'Luke' robotic prosthetic arm gets approval from FDA --*
WASHINGTON (UPI) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its approval for the DEKA Arm System, a robotic prosthetic controlled by the brain.

The DEKA Arm is nicknamed "Luke" after Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, who lost his arm after it was cut off by Darth Vader during a lightsaber fight in the iconic sci-fi film. He was then fitted with an arm he could control with his mind.

The DEKA Arm is controlled using electromyogram (EMG) electrodes connected to the user's muscles. The arm can perform up to ten simultaneous movements signaled by the electrodes when the wearer thinks of actions, such as touching or grasping.

This can help with tasks like picking up eggs and other delicate processes that are still difficult with modern prostheses.

The DEKA Arm was developed by Segway inventor Dean Kamen's team at DEKA Research with funding coming in part from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office.

Kamen said the arm can be fitted for people who lost their limb at the shoulder, mid-upper arm and mid-lower arm, but it cannot yet be adapted for limb loss at the elbow or wrist.

FDA approval means the DEKA Arm can be sold to the public but prices are not yet available.


*-- NASA spots a square hole in the sun --*
WASHINGTON (UPI) - An updraft of solar winds ripped a hole in the sun's outer atmosphere with remarkable geometric precision, creating a nearly perfect square. The dark spot, seen in the video and picture, is known as a "coronal hole." It is the gap made when solar winds rip up, out and away from the sun's surface at astonishing speeds -- the solar winds taking advantage of a cooler, weakened spot in the sun's magnetic field. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory -- a satellite that focuses its gaze on the sun while orbiting Earth, capturing high resolution imagery of the mother star -- recorded a video of the square hole last week. Officials released the video over the weekend. "Inside the coronal hole you can see bright loops where the hot plasma outlines little pieces of the solar magnetic field sticking above the surface," SDO officials wrote in a news release. "Because it is positioned so far south on the sun, there is less chance that the solar wind stream will impact us here on Earth."

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