Patients can now guide robotic limbs using devices implanted in their brains. For the first time since accidents severed the neural connection between their brains and limbs, a small number of patients are reaching out and feeling the world with prosthetic devices wired directly to their brains. Earlier this month, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena implanted a person's brain with electrode arrays that read neural activity to control a robotic arm and stimulate the brain to deliver a sensation of what the arm touched. And since 2011, a team at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania has been working with a small number of people who control prostheses through neural implants. "It's moving quick at the moment," says Christian Klaes, a neuroscientist on the Caltech effort.

Riverain Technologies has received regulatory approval for the next-generation version of its imaging software that "suppresses" bones to help radiologists detect cancerous lung nodules. OnGuard 5.2, the latest version of the software, uses pattern recognition and machine learning technologies to essentially allow radiologists to see behind ribs and clavicles that often obscure lung abnormalities. OnGuard also circles areas that may be a lung tumor, according to the Dayton, Ohio-area company. The software's aim is to help clinicians reading chest X-rays get better views of pulmonary nodules -- spots on the lungs that can be a form of early stage cancer, but can also be benign. The new version of the software offers greater sensitivity, meaning it can better detect nodules, and better specificity, meaning it yields fewer false positives, said Steve Worrell, Riverain's chief technology officer.

Its creators nicknamed it the "Luke Arm," after Luke Skywalker's ultra-advanced bionic limb. Now, after nearly eight years of development and testing, this robotic arm for amputees has been approved for commercialization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The "Luke Arm," whose official name is DEKA Arm System, is one of the most advanced robotic prostheses ever built. According to the FDA, this is the first prosthetic arm approved by the agency that "translates signals from a person's muscles to perform complex tasks." The DEKA Arm was created by famed inventor Dean Kamen and his team at DEKA Research and Development Corp., in Manchester, N.H., as part of DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.

Almost exactly a year ago, in April 2010, professional motocross rider Randy Childers sustained serious injuries after a crash in the last race of the day at Cowboy Badlands in West Beaumont, Texas. He suffered broken ribs and a fractured wrist, but most seriously a crushed vertebra in his neck (C3) that required him to be airlifted to Houston, where surgeons inserted an artificial vertebra and fused two others together (C4 and C5) during a marathon operation that lasted 12 hours. Today, the 24-year-old is the star in a single-patient trial of Rice University's RiceWrist robot, a wearable exoskeleton that mimics the joints from his shoulder to his hand. After months of traditional physical therapy, Childers had recovered enough by October to walk (albeit slowly) into the basement lab at Rice and begin to use the RiceWrist, which is built to reconnect motor pathways in the brain through repetitive movement. After just two weeks, Rice Professor Marcia O'Malley says, Childers was doing most of the work himself.

IBM Watson Health has announced a joint initiative with the US Food and Drug Administration to study the use of blockchain technology to share health data to ultimately improve public health. At first, the two-year collaboration will focus on oncology data, pulling together and exchanging data from a variety of sources including that from clinical trials, genomic data, EMRs, and from miscellaneous Internet of Things data from wearables, apps and connected devices. IBM and the FDA will look at how the technology can facilitate information exchange across a spectrum of data types, including clinical trials and real world data. For example, patient-generated data from connected devices could provide clinicians with more insights into population health, potentially offering up research opportunities and ways to leverage large quantities of data into biomedical and healthcare industries. At the core of the collaboration is blockchain technology, which allows secure data sharing between organizations more freely and has been increasingly favored among industry leaders.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, forget the scary movies about rebellious robots or the dire warnings of a dystopian world of disconnected humanity imagined by some popular writers. AI promises, rather, to change our lives in profound ways we are just beginning to experience, according to a ground-breaking survey produced by Stanford University. Stanford is taking the long view of AI, with a project called One Hundred Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100). The study, written by a panel of AI experts from multiple fields including healthcare, will continue as an ongoing activity, with periodic reports examining how AI will touch different aspects of daily life. The first of those reports, "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030," looks into the effects that AI advancements will have on a typical North American city a little more than a decade from now.

India's patent laws allow for reverse-engineering of certain technologies. A prime example of this reverse-engineering is in the pharmaceutical space, where Indian pharma companies are allowed to reverse-engineer drugs, especially life-saving ones. These drugs may have been developed by pharma majors in other parts of the world--and then introduced into western markets--after India-based outsourcing firms had helped them out with clinical trials, data gathering and reporting to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or its equivalent to get these drugs passed. Indian courts have continued to allow such reverse-engineering of drugs--famously prompting Bayer AG's then CEO Martin Dekkers to say at a conference a few years ago, "We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for western patients who can afford it."

Over the last one year, Intuitive Surgical has generated returns in excess of 50%. An economic moat, a lack of competition and financial out-performance are some of the reasons for this excellent run. In this analysis, we look at the factors that can impact Intuitive's growth going ahead: Competition from other players: Intuitive Surgical faces little competition in the robotic surgery market, as there are significant barriers to entry and the company holds more than 1,000 patents worldwide. So far Intuitive has enjoyed a free run. TransEnterix was expected to be the challenger with its SurgiBot Systems.

DARPA's sophisticated LUKE bionic arm is ready for production, eight years after its development began and a couple of years after it was approved by the FDA. Before the bionic limb makes the transition into a commercial product, though, the military division is giving war veterans access to its initial production run. DARPA's Biological Technologies Office director Justin Sanchez has recently delivered two LUKE arms to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for use by a couple of vets in need of a prosthetic limb. LUKE, which used to be known as the DEKA Arm System, is the brainchild of Segway creator Dean Kamen. Its name stands for Life Under Kinetic Evolution, but as you can guess, it was also inspired by Luke Skywalker whose hand was replaced with a robotic appendage in The Empire Strikes Back. The arm can understand multiple commands at any one time, giving it the ability to move as naturally as possible.

When I was a scrawny little chap, shortest in my high school class, I always wanted a super power. Wanted doesn't capture the feeling. I would have given a limb for a super power. I read a lot of books back then (and now) and landed on a super power that had something to do with the brain. I eventually landed on Prof. Xavier of the X-Men.