Excerpt
SUMMARY: Improvements in body armor have kept more soldiers alive, but many veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan have come back with debilitating injuries. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien, whose left arm was amputated last year, tests out some of the future limbs now in development.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): A report on the possibilities and limits of robotic arms and prosthetic technology.
It’s also a story with a real and personal connection for us through the experiences of our science correspondent, Miles O’Brien. One year ago, he was involved in an unlikely accident that led to the amputation of much of his left arm. Since then, he’s been reporting and exploring what might be available to help him and others.
Here’s the first of two reports.
Lots of people wonder why I don’t wear a high-tech bionic arm. It’s a fair question for an arm amputee who happens to be a reporter with more than 20 years on the science and technology beat. People expect a professional nerd like me would have an arm that approaches what Luke Skywalker or Colonel Steve Austin wore.
ACTOR: We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was.
MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour): Not yet, but maybe soon, as I discovered not far from my home in Washington at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Here, they’re using knowledge gained, building compact, complex systems like spacecraft and missile warheads to push the envelope in upper limb prosthetics.
MICHAEL MCLOUGHLIN, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory: This is the modular prosthetic limb. This has been designed to have most of the functionality of the human limb.
MILES O’BRIEN: Chief engineer Mike McLoughlin introduced me to the Modular Prosthetic Limb, the MPL. It’s the most sophisticated artificial limb in the world.
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