The past two decades have brought about some incredible – and very expensive – advances in prosthetic limb technology. A prosthetic leg can now contain microprocessors, gyroscopes, and hydraulics to give the amputee a completely natural gait. In India and other developing nations, having a leg amputated usually means a lifetime with a stiff, unmoving prosthetic. MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering Amos Winter wants to bring a low-tech solution to people in developing countries who don’t have $50,000 to spend on a top-of-the-line leg.

Winter and his associates published a paper detailing their research on the ideal torque that a prosthetic leg should produce in order to replicate the gait of a natural knee. Working off of that research, the team was able to build a prototype of a working prosthetic leg that uses simple elements like springs and dampers instead of high-tech electronic components.

Their low-tech prototype uses a spring to slightly bend the “knee” as the leg moves; two dampers stop the leg from swinging backward and slow it down during its forward movement just before the heel hits the ground. Using this simple system, the prosthetic leg allows for a much more natural gait than the typical non-dynamic prosthetic leg. The researchers have begun testing their invention with above-the-knee amputees in India and hope that, once refined, their prosthesis will cost only a few hundred dollars.

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More than 40 years ago, Colorado resident Les Baugh lost both of his arms from the shoulder down in an electrical accident. He could never have predicted that, four decades after the accident, he would be the first double amputee ever to test out twin mind-controlled cyborg arms.

The Modular Prosthetic Limbs have been in development at Johns Hopkins University for the past decade. They work with a Virtual Integration Environment, or VIE, which is kind of like a virtual reality version of the prosthetic limbs. When using either the VIE or the physical limbs, Baugh has only to think about moving his robot arms to make them do his bidding.

Before the arms could be fitted, though, Baugh had to undergo a painful targeted muscle reinnervation surgery. The surgery redirected the nerves that once controlled Baugh’s arms and hands, making it possible to control the new cyborg arms with his mind. Once he recovered from the surgery, Baugh was fitted with a custom socket that fits over his torso and shoulders.

The torso supports the weight of the prosthetic limbs and also makes the neurological connections between the brain and the newly rewired nerves. Once the socket was completed and Baugh was fitted with his robot arms, he was able to perform tasks like moving a cup from a counter-height shelf to a higher shelf. He also picked up a ball from the lower shelf and dropped it into a basket on the higher shelf.

Baugh managed to learn all of this with only 10 days of training, and the team was astonished at how quickly and easily he was able to start controlling both arms. He was performing complex motions on both arms at the same time – a feat which can probably be half attributed to the intuitive design of the VIE and the exceptionally advanced prosthetic limbs. But a large portion of the credit has to go to Mr. Baugh, who put on those arms and just started moving them around like they’d always been part of his body.

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Prosthetic devices for humans are easy enough to obtain, and they’re getting more advanced every year. But animal prostheses are a little harder to find, so creative vets often find themselves making up their own solution for injured animals.

Blade the tortoise was having a hard time in life: a growth disorder made it difficult for him to hold himself up, and he wasn’t able to move around normally. His owner took him to Dr. Carsten Plischke, a vet who had a novel idea for getting Blade up and running. (The video below is in German but has some great footage of Blade scooting around.)

Dr. Plischke fitted Blade with two sets of Lego wheels on the underside of his shell. The wheels lift Blade off of the ground just enough that he can move his legs to scoot himself around. This isn’t the first time Lego wheels have been used to give shelled friends a mobility boost; another German vet used a similar technique on a turtle missing a leg.

The makeshift Lego wheelchair is only a temporary measure; the vet says that Blade will eventually regain full use of his legs and be able to walk like any other tortoise. Until then, he gets to ride around on one of the sweetest animal mobility scooters ever built.

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There are animal people, and then there are people who will go above and beyond to give everything they have to help an animal in need. Kitty Martin is an above-and-beyond kind of person. She found a young calf frozen to a field in Virginia, nearly starved to death with its hind hooves lost to frostbite. The retired truck driver jumped into action, calling animal hospitals all over the country to find help for the little calf she named Hero.

Hero’s fate was uncertain for a while. He was so badly injured that his veterinary team at first thought it would be best to euthanize him. But Hero lived up to his name and regained enough health to receive his first pair of prosthetic legs. The company that made Hero’s new legs had never made bovine replacement legs before, so they studied cows’ natural gaits to see if they could reproduce those movements biomechanically.

It took a while for Hero to get used to his new legs. He was wobbly and unsure at first, but eventually learned to use them almost as effectively as a set of natural legs. Watching the growing cow totter around on his prosthetic legs is precious and heartbreaking all at once. Since receiving his first pair of legs, Hero has outgrown the prostheses and received a new, larger pair.

Although Martin rescued Hero and spent nearly $40,000 on his new legs, she doesn’t plan to make him a house pet. Hero is going to live on a farm in Texas where she can visit him regularly. According to this all-star animal lover, she would like to see Hero work with human amputees as a source of inspiration and companionship.

The post Calf Frozen to the Ground Rescued + Given Shiny New Legs first appeared on Gajitz.