Bionics for Vets - Phase One for the Bionic Ectoshell NCO

For soldiers who have lost limbs in Iraq, a prosthetic arm inspired by 'Star Wars' and other bionic ideas.

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, is accustomed to being presented with problems people think he should solve. Usually he says no, as he was fully expecting to do when he met with a Department of Defense official in 2005. "This guy visits and basically says, 'Look, we've had 1,600 kids go over [to Iraq] and lose an arm. Two dozen have lost two'," Kamen recalls. " 'At the end of the Civil War, we gave them a hook on a stick. Now we give them a hook at the end of a plastic tube'." His visitor then checked off a list of demands for an improved prosthetic arm: fully articulate, with an opposable thumb and fine motor control, small, lightweight and completely self-contained "He listed all this stuff, and said, 'We want it in two years'," Kamen says with a laugh.rory dunn