http://cellar.org/pictures/bionicarms.jpg

This girl was born with no arms. And so she has now been fitted with bionic arms, mechanical arms that will listen to other muscles and react predictably. She has to learn how to use them, but will have completely opposable thumbs and whatnot. The arms have been colored to match the rest of her body and will be extended as she grows.

Sometimes this is a wonderful world.

Not to be a parade-rainer, but I gotta point this out.

The world is wonderful sometimes. Then you get the bill for such a thing.

I agree, this is a great feat, and I feel genuinely happy about it, but the cynicism is still there(especially with my experiences with the Medical world).

~Mike

The thing which really amazes me is that, somehow, they appear to have connected the artificial arms with her nervous system so that they behave in a more "seamless" way than was previously possible. At least, that was my impression... it could well be that the artificial arms actually act in response to stimuli from the adjacent natural muscles on this girl's arm.

But, as you say, sometimes this indeed a wonderful world,

Or, indeed, this is a sometimes wonderful world,
Z

They said she has to learn to flex certain back muscles to open joints, certain chest muscles to close joints. So it's not clear exactly how connected to the nervous system they are.

The total price was $70000.

Here is another shot of the girl, this time an earlier one just after she was fitted with the arms.

http://cellar.org/pictures/artiarmgirl.jpg