When the air ambulance brought Jim Ashworth-Beaumont to King's College hospital in south-east London, nobody thought he had a hope. He had been cycling home when a lorry driver failed to spot him alongside his trailer while turning left after a set of traffic lights. The vehicle's wheels opened his torso like a sardine tin, puncturing his lungs and splitting his liver in two. They also tore off his right arm. Weeks after the accident, in July 2020, Ashworth-Beaumont would see a photo of the severed limb taken by a doctor while it lay beside him in hospital. He had asked to see the picture and says it helped him come to terms with his loss. "My hand didn't look too bad," he says. "It was as if it was waving goodbye to me." Ashworth-Beaumont, a super-fit and sunny former Royal Marine from Edinburgh, would go on to spend six weeks in an induced coma as surgeons raced to repair his crushed body. But as he lay on the road, waiting for the paramedics, his only thoughts were that he was dying.

Thousands of people in Gaza require artificial limbs after being maimed in Israeli attacks. Technicians are making prosthetic arms and legs from recycled materials as medical supplies are blocked by Israel's siege.

The thought of humans having wings, tentacles or an extra arm may all seem rather unlikely. But these scenarios could actually become reality in the next few decades, thanks to leaps in human augmentation. Researchers have already designed a'Third Thumb' controlled by foot movements, which allows the wearer to unscrew a bottle, peel a banana or thread a needle using just one hand. Now, experts believe the thumb is just a first step towards larger, more dramatic additions to the human body. Tamar Makin, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cambridge University, said the brain's ability to adapt to an extra limb was'extraordinary'.

Scientists have created an inflatable robotic hand that costs a fraction of more rigid prosthetic limbs and gives amputees real-time tactile control. The pliable design, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the inflatable robot in the animated film'Big Hero 6', includes five balloon-like fingers attached to a 3D-printed'palm' shaped like a human hand. Its creators are particularly excited because the parts cost around $500 (£362), making it much more affordable than other bionic limbs that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The pliable design includes five balloon-like fingers attached to a 3D-printed'palm' shaped like a human hand Prosthetics that attach to part of the human body are often objects that allow a person to perform a specific function - such as blades for running. Scientists are working to develop prosthetics that are personalised and respond to the commands of the wearer.

Scientists have developed a robotic 3D-printed'third thumb' that's controlled using pressure sensors on the underside of the big toes. The thumb, created by a researcher at University College London (UCL), is worn on the side of the hand opposite the actual thumb, near the little finger. In trials, researchers found the human brain can adapt to the use of an extra thumb, but that it may alter the relationship between the brain and the biological hand. Volunteers who were fitted with the third thumb effectively carried out dexterous tasks, like building a tower of blocks, with one hand, researchers found. Having a third thumb could let people carry more objects than usual, hold and open a bottle of soft drink with one hand, or even become a maestro on the guitar.

A Texan man has built his own bionic hand using artificial intelligence (AI) after three years of research. After finding most bionic hands can cost up to $150,000, Ryan Saavedra, 27, set out to create one at a fraction of the cost. The prosthetic he created, called the Globally Available Robotic Arm (GARA), measures electrical activity of muscle tissue – a method called electromyography (EMG) – and combines this with AI to predict hand movements. When attached to the limb of an amputee, it is capable of intuitive finger movements and clasping objects such as cups. Saavedra's company, Alt-Bionics, has already made a prototype that costs less than $700 (£520) to produce, and is now working to commercialise the device.

Each month, Future Tense Fiction--a series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives--publishes a story on a theme. The evening before you sign and take delivery of your son, you call Charlie and tell him you think you've made a huge mistake. "Let me come on over and split a few with you," he says. "I haven't seen the fire pit yet." Charlie--a short, compact man with green eyes and a shaved head whom you met when he delivered groceries the first few weeks you were housebound--brings over a six-pack. You walk out into the complex's community garden together. It used to be a parking lot, and the path through the mushroom gardens under the solar panels is still faded gray asphalt and leftover white lines. You're careful with your right foot; you still haven't gotten used to the way your prosthetic moves. You and Sienna from 4B have a fire pit and stone circle dug out in your combined lots, and she's grown a privacy wall of rosebushes that surround the relaxing space. Charlie sits on one of the cedar benches as you fiddle with twigs to make a fire. This beats the awkwardness of sitting down to talk right away. Your parents didn't raise you to be direct about feelings. Neither did the army, nor the warehouse you drove a forklift in. Charlie will, if you let him. Making a fire gives you a moment to sort out all your feelings. Or maybe it just gives you an excuse to delay talking about them.

As data breaches, misuse of personal information and the spread of disinformation erode the public's trust in Silicon Valley, it can be all too easy to become cynical about technology's impact on the world. But there are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about tech's role in society moving forward. Below, TIME speaks to 10 innovators, founders, investors and even athletes who remain upbeat about technology's influence despite the many challenges facing the industry today. Moustapha Cisse left Senegal a decade ago to study artificial intelligence, and now he believes the technology can change Africa for the better. Cisse, 34, is leading Google's AI research center in Accra, Ghana, the company's first such venture in Africa. "I built my team here around people who are really committed to make a difference in people's lives," Cisse tells TIME. "[They] bring a fresh perspective in the field by looking at the problems that we have in Africa." Growing up, no one would have expected Cisse to be heading up a multi-billion dollar corporation's research initiative.

Researchers have developed a next-generation bionic hand that allows amputees to regain their proprioception. The results of the study, which have been published in Science Robotics, are the culmination of ten years of robotics research. The next-generation bionic hand, developed by researchers from EPFL, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and the A. Gemelli University Polyclinic in Rome, enables amputees to regain a very subtle, close-to-natural sense of touch. The scientists managed to reproduce the feeling of proprioception, which is our brain's capacity to instantly and accurately sense the position of our limbs during and after movement – even in the dark or with our eyes closed. The new device allows patients to reach out for an object on a table and to ascertain an item's consistency, shape, position and size without having to look at it.

I was born with the usual set of limbs. When I was nine months old, I contracted meningococcal septicaemia, a dangerous infection of the blood, which very nearly killed me. I survived, but because I had sustained major tissue damage, it became necessary to amputate my right leg below the knee, all of the fingers on my left hand and the second and third digits on my right hand. I learned to walk on a prosthetic leg at the age of 14 months, and have gone through my life wearing a succession of artificial limbs. As time has passed and technology has advanced, so too have my limbs. Like our mobile phones, prostheses have become lighter, faster and more efficient. When I was nine, I was fitted with a lifeless silicone hand, a useless thing that was purely cosmetic, and so clumsy that I refused to wear it after the first day. Now, at 21, and a student in my third year at Edinburgh University, I wear a bionic arm with nimble fingers that move independently, which I operate using controlled muscle movements in my forearm, as well as an app on my phone. As a child I wore a stiff artificial leg attached with straps that frequently fell off; earlier this summer, I took delivery of a new dynamic right leg with shock absorption and carbon fibre blades. Prosthetics have been around for more than 3,000 years: wooden toes, which strapped on and were specifically designed to work with sandals, were found on the feet of Ancient Egyptian mummies.