cyborgs

If the idea of turning consumers into true cyborgs sounds creepy, don't tell Intel researchers. Intel's Pittsburgh lab aims to develop brain implants that can control all sorts of gadgets directly via brain waves by 2020.

Meet Ged Galvin, the Steve Austin of colorectal surgery. After a car crash in which Galvin almost died, surgeons at Royal London Hospital realized they could rebuild his crushed organs. Stronger. Faster. They had the technology to give him a cyborg colon.

"The operation changed my life and gave me back my pride and confidence," Galvin told the Daily Telegraph.

Much of the debate on the place of advanced prostheses for the disabled in competitive sports often downplays arguably the most important perspective: that of the athletes who couldn't compete without them. In light of the recent MIT research project that found prosthetic limbs offering no advantage over natural legs, sprinter and double Cheetah leg user Aimee Mullins has some even more thought-provoking (and first-hand) analysis of the issue.