Building Cyborgs In Real Life

'We can rebuild him. We have the technology.' Almost.

Three decades after the hit television programme The Six Million Dollar Man described how the broken body of a former astronaut was rebuilt with mechanical parts, scientists are closer than ever to creating such cyborgs.

The character Steve Austin, played by Lee Majors, became a 1970s pop culture icon after his legs, right arm and left eye were replaced in an operation that gave the world the catch phrase: "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology."

Yesterday, at the Experimental Biology 2006 meeting attended by around 12,000 delegates in San Francisco, leading scientists explained in a symposium on "The $6 Billion (Hu) Man" how much of what was once fiction is becoming reality - including electronically powered legs, arms and eyes.

It's the same with sixties Star Trek. Much of what was considered extremely hi-tech in that show, is now considered old fashioned.

Funny how things like that can work out.

Anyway... the source article goes in depth about cybernetic legs, arms, hands, eyes and ears.