10個可替換的人體器官
Human bodies are frail, easily damaged packages full of parts that can never fully come back once lost. Luckily, researchers worldwide are working on replacing every bit of the body to make us all cyborgs.
人的身體是十分脆弱的，有些嬌弱的器官一旦破壞就永遠難以復原。幸運的是，世界各地的研究人員都在研究能替代我們身體部位的生化機械器官。
rsensitive Electronic Skin
10.超敏感電子皮膚
Skin has the thankless job of coating and protecting your whole body, making it your most easily damaged organ. When you burn or rip off a stretch of skin, your main option right now is to graft some back on from elsewhere on your body. But an effective synthetic replacement skin may not be that far off, thanks to research from Stanford scientists.
皮膚辛苦的擔任着包裹我們和保護我們整個身體的責任，因此它也成爲了最容易被傷害的器官。當皮膚被燒傷或者被割破，你最快的選擇是從身體其他部位移植一部分過來。然而，感謝斯坦福大學科學家的研究，一種能有效替代人體皮膚的材料，不久後將面世。
Stanford's Zhenan Baohas has developed a super-flexible, super-durable, and super-sensitive material that can be the basis for future synthetic skin. People have tried developing synthetic skin before, but Baohas's material handles touch sensitivity better than any predecessor. It contains organic transistors and a layer of elastic, letting it stretch without taking damage. And it's self-powered—this skin contains a series of elastic solar cells.
斯坦福大學的Zhenan Baohas 研發出了一種具備超彈性、超耐性和超敏感的材料，能夠作爲未來發展人工皮膚的基礎。以前，人們也研究過生化皮膚，但是Baohas的材料比以前研發出來的更具敏感性。它帶有有機轉換物質和一層彈性材料，保證它在不被破壞情況下的延展性。另外，這種材料帶有一系列的太陽能電池元件，可以自動充電。
ing Hearts Created In A Petri Dish
9.在培養皿中跳動的心臟
Scientists have long investigated stem cells' potential for growing hearts, and they reached a major milestone this year when they created heart tissue than can beat on its own.
長久以來，科學家一直在研究幹細胞分化爲心臟組織的潛力，今年當他們創造出可以自己搏動的心臟組織時，這一研究工作達到了一個重要的里程碑。
The University of Pittsburgh team used stem cells made from skin to make MCPs, a special kind of cell that acts as a precursor to cardiovascular tissue. They then placed these cells on a 3-D scaffold designed to support a mouse heart. Within 20 days, the new heart began beating at 40 to 50 beats per minute.
匹茲堡大學的研究小組從來自皮膚的幹細胞培養出MCPs，一種可以作爲心血管組織驅動器的特殊細胞。他們把這些細胞放在一種可以維持老鼠心臟的3-D支架上。在20天內，新的心臟開始以每分鐘40~50次的速率搏動。
This heart is too weak to actually pump blood, which is the primary reason anyone would want an new heart. But the tissue has a lot of potential for patching heart muscles that have suffered damage.
雖然這個心臟太虛弱，不能真的輸送血液，但是這種細胞組織在修復受傷的心臟肌肉方面具有巨大潛力。
thetic Hands That Sense Touch
8.觸感人造手
Current prosthetic hands do little beyond filling the arm-shaped space between your body and the air. Sure, they can grasp things all right, and they help in balance, but they lack one of the human hand's most important abilities—the sense of touch. People with prosthetics can't detect if they're in contact with an object without looking at it directly.
現在的假手除了具備手的外形外，幾乎沒有其他功能。當然，這些假手能夠拿東西和保持身體平衡，但是它們缺乏人手最重要的功能之一——觸感。裝了假手的人在碰觸到一樣物品時，如果不用眼睛看，是沒法判斷東西的。
A research team at the University of Chicago has solved this problem, producing hands that send electric signals to the brain. They've begun with monkeys as test subjects, studying the animals to see how their brains respond to touch. When outfitted with prosthetic hands that stimulate their brains that way, the monkeys respond just as though they physically touch objects themselves.
芝加哥大學的一個研究小組製造了一種能夠向大腦傳遞信號的假手來解決這個問題。他們以猴子爲測試對象，研究動物大腦對觸摸信號的反應。當裝備了可以刺激大腦的假手後，那些猴子的反應就好像他們身體接觸到了物體一樣。
Programming these same signals into artificial human limbs would give amputees replacement hands unlike anything we've developed before.
將這些類似的信號通過編程的方式寫入造假肢，會給截肢者帶來和以前研發出來的產品完全不同的假肢。
ght-Controlled Bionic Legs
7.思想控制仿生腿
Though bionic legs are of course a huge boon to amputees, they lack actual nerve connections with the body. As a result, walking on them is cumbersome and tiring. But last year, Seattle resident Zac Vawter was outfitted with the world's first thought-controlled leg, a bionic limb that takes signals directly from his mind.
雖然仿生腿對截肢者來說是巨大的福音，但是它們與人體缺乏真正的神經聯繫，導致依靠仿生腿走路十分麻煩和勞累。但是去年，西雅圖的居民Zac Vawter 安裝了世界上第一支思想控制的腿，一種直接接受從他大腦發出信號的仿生肢體。
This technology previously existed for arms, but legs are rather more complicated. And since a misread signal can send you jumping off a bridge or in front of a moving car, thought-controlled legs need more stringent programming than equivalent arms. As one of the researchers delicately put it, “If you're using a bionic arm and it misbehaves, the elbow may move slightly. If the prosthetic leg misbehaves . . . that could be quite a safety issue.”
這項技術曾經運用於武器，但是運用在仿生腿上會更復雜。誤讀信號可能導致安裝者跳下橋或站在開動的車輛前，依靠思想控制的仿生腿需要比武器更爲複雜的程序。正如研究者指出的那樣：如果你使用仿生胳膊，而胳膊動作做錯了，可能只是手肘偏移預訂位置。而如果仿生腿動作做錯了，那可能就是生命安全問題了。
Vawter climbed 103 floors of a Chicago skyscraper on his bionic leg, but its designers are still working on improving it. To optimize it for everyday use, they have to make it even thinner and lighter. Its successor (the iLeg Air?) may meet the Army's stated goal for a bionic leg—10,000 steps without recharging.
Vawter 使用仿生腿在芝加哥一棟高樓裏向上爬了103個階梯，但是仿生腿的設計者們仍然在嘗試提高它的性能。爲了使它能適用於日常生活，設計者們必須讓它更輕更薄。它的衍生品（充氣仿生腿）可以滿足陸軍對於仿生腿的階段性目標——行走一萬步不用充電。
ature Human Brains
6.微型人腦
Brain death is a bit of an inconvenience if you're a fan of living, and if you're looking to replace yours with a spare, you're out of luck. Sure, maybe we'll one day be able to plant brains into skulls, but the brain's not just another organ. It contains all your thoughts and memories. They can plop a new brain in your head, but you'll still be gone, so the idea of making artificial brains may seem absurd.
如果你熱愛生存，那麼腦死亡是一件不美好的事。而且，如果你想用空閒的大腦來替換，那你是絕對找不到的。當然，也許有一天，我們能將大腦放入頭骨中，但是大腦跟別的器官不同。它裝有你所有的思想和記憶。人們能在你頭裏放一個新的大腦，但是你還是不存在，所以人造大腦這種想法看起來很荒謬。
But that hasn't stopped scientists from growing actual human brains in a lab. Starting with nothing but stem cells, scientists in Austria this year managed to create brains equivalent to those in nine-week-old fetuses. These miniature brains are the size of peas and are incapable of thought—so far. The one thing keeping the brains from growing beyond this stage and becoming fully functional is that they have no blood supply.
但是這並沒有阻止科學家在實驗室發展人造大腦。今年奧地利的科學家僅從幹細胞開始，成功地創造出等同於9個周大的嬰兒的大腦。目前，這些大腦只有豌豆大小，也不能思考。阻止這些試驗品發育成具有完全功能的大腦的因素是它們沒有血液供給。
But that hasn't stopped scientists from growing actual human brains in a lab. Starting with nothing but stem cells, scientists in Austria this year managed to create brains equivalent to those in nine-week-old fetuses. These miniature brains are the size of peas and are incapable of thought—so far. The one thing keeping the brains from growing beyond this stage and becoming fully functional is that they have no blood supply.
儘管這些大腦沒有進入任何人的身體，但是他們給科學院研究腦科疾病提供了原材料。
5.3-D Printed Ears
5.3-D 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 toys.
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。
But 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.
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。
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.
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?
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？
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 diseases.
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。
The 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.
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 arises.
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。
Artificial 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.
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。
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.
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 crack.
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。
Not 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.
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。
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.
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.”
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”。
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 use.
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。
The 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.
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。
