Bionics
I was fascinated last night when I saw on the news that a soldier, Cpl Andrew Garthwaite (aged 26) from South Tyneside, was badly injured in Afghanistan when a Taliban grenade took off his right arm. He is believed to be the first person in the UK to have such a bionic arm.
It involved surgery, including having his nerve system rewired, and months of learning how to use the new arm.
To prepare for the technology the soldier underwent six hours of surgery at a hospital in Austria in January 2012 in a procedure called Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR).
The surgeons at the hospital in the Medical University of Vienna had to rewire his nervous system - taking the nerve endings from his shoulder, that would have run down to his hand - and rewired these into his chest muscles.
He moves the hand by thought processes - remarkable!
I don't know how to put video links so it'll have to be via a general link to the Beeb:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-25320455
What a difference it must make to his life. Well done to those who pioneered and perfected this procedure.