With Monday here, it's time to wrap up last week's theme This Cyborg Life, a look into the future of the machine called Man.
Yes, that means saying goodbye to Aimee Mullins. She was with us for three essays, all of which dealt with issues of prostheses from unexpected perspectives, that few of us will soon forget. In case you missed any, have a look:
• Is Choosing a Prosthesis So Different than Picking a Pair of Glasses?
• Racing on Carbon Fiber Legs: How Abled Should We Be?
• Normal Was Never Cool: Inception of Perception
Of course, what we really tried to explore is the notion that "prosthetics" aren't just carbon fiber limbs. Is a smartphone with a Bluetooth headset anything but? Using technology to augment ourselves physically and mentally is now a regular part of our agenda, and will be more and more integral to our selves in the coming decades, from implantable computers to programming our body's biological robots to do our bidding.
A big thanks to Aimee Mullins, Marc Hodosh at TEDMED and all of the other contributors and experts who joined us this week:
• Robot expert and author Daniel H. Wilson - Me and My Exoskeleton: The Trick to Super Strength
• Michael Specter, author and science writer at The New Yorker - Synthetic Biology: Why Not Pursuing Crazy Biotech Is Dangerous
• Author Anna Jane Grossman - Psychic Powers, Cochlear Implants, and My Bionic Ex-Boyfriend
• Dr. Debby Herbenick, author and sexologist at The Kinsey Institute and Indiana University - Becoming a Sexual Cyborg (NSFW)
And in case all of that wasn't enough, to read all of the stories from This Cyborg Life, use this link.