via George

You may have heard me rant about these in the same breath as cochlear implants, but, well, seeing is believing. Video contains a news article about bionic eyes being implanted into fully blind patients in the UK; current versions provide an image of about 30 or 60 pixels directly through electrical stimulation of the optic nerve.

• Those of you with an interest in languages should check these out - two resources related to dead and dying languages. First, an interactive feature from National Geographic covering regions of the world in which large numbers of languages stand to go extinct. Secondly, a collection of data layers for Google Earth show an assortment of data related to dying languages; this one's particularly nifty.
• Impaired anal sphincter function in professional cyclists. "Permanent microtrauma through constant saddle vibration may lead to chronic inflammation and anal fissure resulting in anal pain and therefore high sphincter pressure. Muscle hypertrophy as a consequence may lead to defecation disorders." rhinocrow13 - this one's for you. Via A Good Poop
• The Japanese War Tuba An acoustic location system deployed by the Japanese in the 1930s. Looks somewhat like a series of brass players lined up for an artillery barrage. Via Coming Anarchy
• Excerpts from an interview with a FBI veteran interrogator on effective techniques for getting information from terror suspects and other fanatics. He describes methods that are a little surprising, and suggests that odious methods up to and including torture are generally unnecessary and often ineffective. At Foreign Policy
• Long duration material exposure testing in space. Interesting series of photos of a large scale experiment in which a several thousand samples of various materials were exposed to hard vacuum and cosmic radiation over the course of several years. At The Long Now
• Subcutaneous touchscreen display, powered by blood. Once again I assert that the future is here, and it's just going to get weirder. In five years or so, I can see technologies such as this becoming simply another fashion accessory. Via George Dvorsky

Prosthetic limbs are another harbinger of the future. They're becoming increasingly sophisticated, and it looks like IEEE Spectrum is going to run a special issue on them in February.

There's an interesting article up now about the 'Luke' arm, named for Luke Skywalker's prosthetic in Empire Strikes Back. Check it out in this video.

What's really cool is the range of control mechanisms available - gone are cumbersome mechanical arrangements, replaced by controls based on nerve signals, twitching related muscles, or even underused muscle groups such as toes. The video below shows an arm based entirely on neural feedback - the patient doesn't need to learn special commands - his prosthetic responds to messages from his brain similarly to a real one.

Another article discusses cosmeses - coverings for the arm mechanics designed to make them look real. Unfortunately, there's no pictures, though from the description of "silver-black carbon fiber, shimmering with a pattern of subtle scales" sounds pretty damned awesome.

So far, no one has replaced their body parts with prosthetics voluntarily, but given their progress and potential, I give it at most ten years.