How a Hillbilly Delivery Man Is Trailblazing Our Cyborg Future

After losing his left subdivision to Crab in 2008 , Jonny Matheny ’s aliveness changed radically . The ego - style West Virginia hillbilly , formerly a retail bread sale and delivery man , start travel to medical research facility around the res publica to offer as a test - subject for advanced prosthetics and observational surgeries . Today , Matheny is something of a Model T for cyborgs , wielding one of the most advanced mind - check prosthetics ever make .

When I metMathenyat a DARPA applied science expo earlier this year , I was stunned by the flexibility and responsiveness of hisModular Prosthetic Limb , the latest in a series of mind - controlled prosthetics developed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory . But nothing drive home the radical electric potential of a gadget like this than seeing it used to execute mundane tasks : effortlessly put on a hat or stirring a throne , for instance .

A new video byFreethinkgives us a behind - the - scenes look at Matheny ’s journey to become the world ’s most sophisticated bionic serviceman . aboveboard , more than reading any detailed scientific priming , ascertain a guy serve salad with a carbon paper - fibre arm that lead cues from his encephalon convinced me that the future is going be full of bionic man , and that the rest of us will be be jealous .