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"[Science fiction] has become big business, where books are merchandised and promoted and distributed and placed on sale like slabs of bacon or cans of soup."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Cyborg | ||
| A cybernetic organism - man in union with machine |
Steve Austin lost three limbs in a catastrophic crash - can they rebuild him? Using the latest in bionics, scientists were able to replace (and in some cases, augment) his natural legs and arm with mechanical prosthetics that were controlled by Austin's brain, just like his remaining natural human arm.
| Steve Austin at this moment was the only true cybernetics organism living. Cyborg, they called him in the laboratories. And whatever his reaction, it was a measure, successful or otherwise, of their theories and labors. |
| Technovelgy from Cyborg,
by Martin Caidin. Published by Random House in 1972 Additional resources -
|
When Austin reports that he feels pain in his new legs, it is not phantom limb pain; he really does receive feedback of a sort from the bionic legs.
Compare to the cyborg collar from A Specter is Haunting Texas (1968) by Fritz Leiber, the cyborg pilot from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein and the cyborg dolphin from Johnny Mnemonic (1981) by William Gibson.
It has also been suggested that the first cyborg story (which did not use the word "cyborg") was The Man Who Was Used Up, a 1839 story by Edgar Allen Poe, about a general who was mostly prosthetics.
The word "cyborg" is a contraction of "cybernetic organism" and was coined in 1960 by Dr. Manfred Clynes for a NASA conference.
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Cyborg-related
news articles:
- Your Can-Crushing Bionic Hand Is Ready, Steve Austin
| Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts |
| Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick |
| ErythroMer Artificial Blood |
| MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
