E. Paul Zehr, PhD, is professor of neuroscience and kinesiology and director of the Centre for Biomedical Research at the University of Victoria. He is head of the Rehabilitation Neuroscience Laboratory with a research program focused on the neural control of movement and recovery of walking after stroke and spinal cord injury. He has a tremendous passion for the popularization of science and is involved in numerous outreach activities. His recent pop-sci books include Becoming Batman (2008) and Inventing Iron Man, both featured on Rorotoko.
Inventing Iron Man is a kind of sequel to my earlier book Becoming Batman. That book was about asking how far can our biology take us toward the performance of the ultimately-trained Batman. With Inventing Iron Man the focus is on amplifying human ability with technology and the very question of how we interface with all our technology in the first place.We have some pretty clunky interfaces (I am using one right now—it’s called a “keyboard”) when we use technology. If the Iron Man suit of armor existed we would never be able to control it with the conventional ways we use technology. Instead I suggest that the Iron Man suit would need to be directly connected to the brain and spinal cord of the user. It would have to be the most complex “brain machine interface” ever developed.I illustrate this concept using ideas about how the nervous system works, and how things can adapt and change as a result of changes in activity. There really are fewer bigger changes in activity than riding around in an articulated, instrumented, and motorized suit of high-tech armor connected directly to your mind.
E. Paul Zehr Inventing Iron Man: The Possibility of a Human Machine Johns Hopkins University Press224 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches ISBN 978 1421402260
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