人類身體中10個可替換的器官(2)

5.3D Printed Ears

5.3D 打印耳朵

We've had the technology to artificially restore hearing for decades, but internal implants do nothing for the visible parts of the ear. You'd think those big flaps ("pinnae") on either side of your head would be easy to replicate, since they're just skin and cartilage rather than complex organs. In reality, scientists have never done a good job with fake ears. Traditional replacements look and feel like plastic researchers this year came up with a new method that makes flexible, realistic ears out of real cells. Those cells come from rats and cows, and they form a collagen gel that can take the shape of any mold. When placed in a mold of a human ear—a mold assembled using a 3-D printer—the gel forms an ear in less than an hour. The artificial ear then just needs a few days growing in nutrients before it's ready to be implanted in a subject. These artificial ears will be a huge benefit to those who suffer injuries or who have microtia, a condition that keeps the ears from ever developing.

我們發展出人工記錄聲音的技術已經有幾十年了，但是人工植入器官在耳朵這一領域沒有任何改變。你可能認爲生長在頭兩邊的肉塊極易替換，因爲它們只是皮和軟骨，而不是複雜的器官。事實上，科學家在製作假耳上並沒有做得非常出色。傳統的替代耳朵看起來或感覺起來都像塑料玩具。但是今年，研究者提出一種新的方法，這種方法可以通過真的細胞製作出有彈性真實的耳朵。這些細胞來自老鼠和奶牛，可以形成膠原凝膠，按任何模具成型。當放入使用3-D打印技術製作的耳朵模型後，一個小時內那些凝膠形成了一隻假耳。在移植到對象之前，人造耳朵只需要在營養成分中生長培養幾天。這些人造耳朵對那些遭受過耳朵傷害或者耳朵停滯發育即患有小耳畸形的人來講是巨大的福音。

s That Smell Diseases

4.聞疾病的鼻子

Scientists may be working hard at making organs that match the body's capabilities, but why stop there?When researchers at the University of Illinois set out to create a device that identifies chemicals by their scent, they didn't settle for the sensitivity of the human nose. Instead, they created an artificial nose that uses the smell of bacteria to identify and diagnose specific result doesn't look much like a nose—it's a bottle filled with liquid nutrient that cultivates bacteria. But give the "nose" a blood sample and let it sniff for a few days, and the bottle's dots will change color to indicate what bacteria, if any, it identifies.

科學家們在賦予人體器官原本能力方面投入很深，但是爲何要僅限於此呢？當伊利諾伊大學的研究員着手建立一種靠嗅覺來鑑別化學物質的裝置時，他們並不滿足於提高人類鼻子的靈敏度。相反，他們發展出一種假鼻子，依靠對細菌的氣味來鑑別和診斷某些疾病。產品看起來並不太像一個鼻子，而是一個瓶子，裝滿了培養細菌的營養液體。但是給這個"鼻子"一個血液樣本，讓它嗅上一段時間，這個瓶子的斑點會改變顏色來表示它鑑別出的細菌種類。

ficial Pancreas

3.人工胰腺

The pancreas produce insulin, and if yours don't, you need to inject yourself with the hormone manually. Diabetics are therefore trapped in a stressful routine of continually checking their blood sugar and then shooting insulin whenever the need ficial pancreas, however, knock insulin into your body automatically. The device looks much like a regular insulin pump, which slips you insulin continuously through your skin, but this one monitors your blood sugar at all times and adjusts itself accordingly. So even when the wearer sleeps, there's no danger of falling into shock if their sugar drops too low. Unlike several items on this list, artificial pancreas aren't still in some early development stage. The device very much exists and got FDA approval for sale this past September.

胰腺產生胰島素，如果你的胰腺沒有這樣做，你需要人工注射胰島素。因此，糖尿病患者必須進行的日常事例是檢查他們的血糖，並且在必要時注射胰島素。但是人造胰腺能夠自動釋放胰島素到你的身體裏。這個裝置看起來像一個規律的胰島素泵，它可以穿透皮膚連續地釋放胰島素進入身體。而且它一直監視血液裏的血糖含量，並根據血糖含量調整胰島素釋放量。所以，即使攜帶該設備的人睡着了，也不會有血糖降至很低而暈倒的危險。不像這篇文章中其他的人造物品，人工胰腺並不處於前期研究階段，這個裝置確實存在，而且在今年9月份得到了FDA的銷售許可

ficial Eyes

2.人工眼睛

As we pointed out earlier, we've long been able to restore hearing to the deaf, but restoring sight to the blind is a much more complicated matter. When people lose their sight, their retinas no longer send signals from their photoreceptors to their brains. To make an artificial eye, we'd need to understand how the retina processes those signals, and that's a code scientists just haven't been able to until recently anyway. But scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have at last managed to—at least with mice and monkeys. This produced artificial retinas, whose chips convert images into electronic signals and whose tiny projectors convert electronic signals into light. These artificial eyes have indeed restored sight to blind mice. And the follow-up experiments on monkeys offer a lot of hope for eventual trials on humans because monkey and human retinas work similarly.

我們前面已經指出，我們已經能夠讓聾子聽到聲音，但是讓盲人看見畫面是更復雜的事情。當人們失去視力，他們的視網膜不再把光感受器的信號發送給大腦。爲了製造人工眼睛，我們需要了解視網膜是如何取得這些信號，而這正是科學家尚未解決的關鍵之處。直到最近，Weill Cornell Medical College的科學家們至少在老鼠和猴子身上實現了這一點。這種人造視網膜，它的芯片可以將畫面轉換爲電子信號，而它的微型投影機可以將電子信號轉化爲投影光線。這些人工眼睛，確實恢復了盲鼠的視力。猴子的視網膜工作原理和人類的非常相似，因此隨後在猴子上進行的試驗給了最終的人類試驗以成功的希望。

ers That Store Digital Files

1.手指存儲器

When Finnish programmer Jerry Jalava had a motorcycle accident in 2008, he faced a double tragedy. First, he lost his finger, an obvious problem for anyone who types for a living. Second, he had to deal with a medical team who thought they were comedians—learning of his profession, one surgeon joked that Jalava should go out and buy a "USB finger drive." Rather than strangling the doctor (difficult, due to his injury) Jalava took the corny line as inspiration. He decided to go ahead and actually build a prosthetic finger that contains two gigabytes of digital storage. He can now jack his finger into a computer just by peeling back the nail to expose the USB plug. He can also remove the entire finger at any time and hand it to a friend to next step? Jalava plans to upgrade the finger with an RFID tag and add wireless support. He also wants to add more memory, which seems pointless to us. If he needs more storage, he has nine other fingers he can chop off and replace with flash drives.

當芬蘭程序員Jerry Jalava 2008年遇到車禍，他面臨雙重悲劇。首先，他失去了他的手指，對於靠打字生存的人來說是個大問題。其次，他必須跟一個幽默感過剩的醫療小組打交道。瞭解了他的遭遇後，一位外科醫生竟然提議Jalava應該出門去買個"USB手指驅動器"。但是Jalava並沒有拒絕醫生的建議（出於傷情的實際情況考慮，拒絕很困難），而是將這個建議作爲自己的期待。他決定試一試，並且真的在植入的手指裏放入兩千兆字節的數字存儲器。他現在只需將指甲剝掉，露出USB插頭，即可將手指插入電腦連接。他也可以在任何時候拿掉整個手指，並且借給朋友使用。下一步呢？Jalava打算給手指帶上RFID標籤以進行升級，並且增加無線支持功能。他想擴充容量，方法自然是很無厘頭的。如果他想有更多空間，他還有9個手指可以切掉換成移動存儲器呢。

翻譯:鄭靜 來源:前十網