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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| 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. |
| 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
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| Do Contagious Vaccines Work Better? |
| Artificial, Implantable Kidney Prototype |
| Ultra-short Pulse Laser Kills Bacteria In Vivo |
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'The wings were at full spread-rest, their delicate metal interleavings extended.'
'A record that wouldn't get lost and couldn't be destroyed.'
'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'
'What he got was indeed a kiss. It was disconcerting. No kissing lips were visible.'
'I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel Olivaw... I am a robot. Were you not told?'
