Jennifer over at Rude Truth takes a look at the brief article on theology and “The Walking Dead” (Toward a Zombie Theology | Religion Dispatches), and argues that a cyborg theology, rather than a zombie one might be a better approach.

See rude truth: toward a zombie cyborg theology

Appears angels and zombies are the new vampires in popular culture, but that hasn’t really happened in NZ yet (apart from a flurry of angel and zombie-based fiction in the public library).

It’s 50 years since the concept of the cyborg was introduced by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline. To commemorate this, Tim Maly has solicited a bunch of brief essays inspired by the theme of the cyborg. See 50 Posts About Cyborgs.

Hat tip to Kevin Kelly at The Technium: We, the Domesticated Cyborg.

My browser has been collecting cyborg-related links over the last few weeks – so I’m getting them all out of the bookmarks here.

• No time like the present to discuss cyborg rights
• Everything You Need To Know About Movie/TV Cyborgs In One Giant Chart
  
• Jamais Cascio on Your Posthumanism Is Boring Me
• James Hughes on Beyond The Human Race – And “Human-Racism”
• Gizmodo – This Cyborg Life
• Aimee Mullins related links
• • TEDMED – Aimee Mullins at TEDMED 2009
  • Aimee Mullins – Gizmodo – Normal Was Never Cool: Inception of Perception
  • Aimee Mullins articles at Gizmodo
  • io9.com – Portraits In Posthumanity: Aimee Mullins
• Religion, Robots and a Second Life | ShelfLife@Texas

From the io9 posthuman newsfeed is a brief article looking a this form of muscle/nerve prosthetic. I’m constantly amazed by this kind of thing, and can’t imagine what it will look like in 10-15 years time. See Portraits In Posthumanity: Claudia Mitchell – Posthumanity – io9

Sentient Developments: Moving objects with your mind has a video clip of one of the new range of toys that use a wearable interface that ‘reads’ your brain’s activity to control physical objects.

A good recent summary of some of the developments in prosthetics.

See We have the technology to rebuild ourselves – tech – 07 January 2009 – New Scientist.

Far-fetched as it may seem now, what if cosmetic surgery was to one day extend to replacing perfectly good arms and legs with more beautiful or powerful ones in the hope of producing another Michael Phelps or Victoria’s Secret model? “Then we will have to evolve as a society a new morality, new ethics and codes of conduct, won’t we?” says Gow.

(David Gow is the inventor of the i-Limb hand).

A timely reminder in the face of all the hooplah about human-machine interfaces : timeless : Direct Human Brain – AI – Interface Technologies by Gina Rydland.

Lack of factual information creates a naive conception of the development process of technologies sanctioned as safe to use, clouding the public debate and undermining sufficient grounds for government decision making. Securing human rights and safety when testing and implementing safe to use technologies, demands access to more specialized and accurate knowledge than today’s global polititical, military and industrial climate permits.

Resonates with Greenflame · Brain-machine interfaces and genuine concern for the other.

Scientific American has a recent article surveying the development of brain to computer interfaces up to recent prototypes that attempt recognise the neurological activity associated with controlling the muscles for speech and translating that into synthetic speech. Very interesting.

From Putting Thoughts into Action: Implants Tap the Thinking Brain: Scientific American

A recent issue of ESPN The Magazine has an article on athletes with prosthetics and some commentary asking what really is the difference between various sorts of technological enhancement in sport. See ESPN – ESPN The Magazine – Let ‘Em Play and the photo gallery at ESPN – ESPN The Magazine – Photo Gallery.

Hat tip to Gregor Wolbring at ESPN Magazine focus on Athletes and Prosthetics « Nano, Bio, Info, Cogno, Synthetic bio, NBICS.

These looks interesting – new prosthetic hands that allows for greater control of fine motor skills. See New Prosthetic Hand Has Grip Function Almost Like A Natural Hand: Each Finger Moves Separately