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Looking deeply inside nature
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through the magnifying glass of science,
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designers extract principles,
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processes, and materials
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that are forming the very
basis of design methodology,
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from synthetic constricts that resemble
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biological materials
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to computational methods that
emulate neural processes,
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nature is driving design.
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Design is also driving nature.
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In realms of genetics, regenerative medicine,
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and synthetic biology,
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designers are growing novel technologies
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not foreseen or anticipated by nature.
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Bionics explores the interplay
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between biology and design.
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As you can see, my legs are bionic.
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Today I will tell human stories
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of bionic integration,
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how electromechanics attached to the body
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and implanted inside the body
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are beginning to bridge the gap
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between disability and ability,
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between human limitation
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and human potential.
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Bionics has defined my physicality.
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In 1982, both of my legs were amputated
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due to tissue damage from frostbite
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incurred during a mountain climbing accident.
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At that time, I didn't view my body
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as broken.
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I reasoned that a human being
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can never be broken.
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Technology is broken.
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Technology is inadequate.
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This simple but powerful idea
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was a call to arms
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to advance technology
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for the elimination of my own disability
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and ultimately to the disability of others.
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I began by developing specialized limbs
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that allowed me to return
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to the vertical world of rock and ice climbing.
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I quickly realized that the artificial part of my body
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is malleable,
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able to take on any form, any function,
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a blank slate through which to create
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perhaps structures that could extend beyond
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biological capability.
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I made my height adjustable.
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I could be as short as five feet or as tall as I'd like.
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(Laughter)
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So when I was feeling badly about myself,
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insecure, I would jack my height up,
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but when I was feeling confident and suave,
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I would knock my height down a notch
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just to give the competition a chance.
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(Laughter) (Applause)
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Narrow, wedged feet allow me to climb
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steep rock fissures
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where the human foot cannot penetrate,
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and spiked feet enable me to climb
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vertical ice walls
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without ever experiencing muscle leg fatigue.
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Through technological innovation,
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I returned to my sport stronger and better.
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Technology had eliminated my disability
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and allowed me a new climbing prowess.
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As a young man, I imagined a future world
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where technology so advanced
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could rid the world of disability,
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a world in which neural implants would allow
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the visually impaired to see,
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a world in which the paralyzed could walk
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via body exoskeletons.
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Sadly, because of deficiencies in technology,
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disability is rampant in the world.
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This gentleman is missing three limbs.
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As a testimony to current technology,
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he is out of the wheelchair,
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but we need to do a better job in bionics
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to allow one day full rehabilitation
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for a person with this level of injury.
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At the MIT Media Lab, we've established
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the Center For Extreme Bionics.
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The mission of the Center
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is to put forth fundamental science
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and technological capability that will allow
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the bionicatronic and regenerative repair of humans
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across a broad range
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of brain and body disabilities.
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Today, I'm going to tell you how my legs function,
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how they work,
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as a kind of case in point for this center.
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Now I made sure to shave my legs last night,
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because I knew I'd be showing them off. (Laughter)
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Bionics entails the engineering
of extreme interfaces.
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There's three extreme interfaces in my bionic limbs:
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mechanical, how my limbs are attached
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to my biological body;
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dynamic, how they move like flesh and bone;
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and electrical, how they communicate
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with my nervous system.
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I'll begin with mechanical interface.
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In the area of design, we still do not understand
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how to attach devices to the body mechanically.
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It's extraordinary to me that in this day and age,
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one of the most mature, oldest technologies
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in the human timeline, the shoe,
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still gives us blisters.
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How can this be?
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We have no idea how to attach things to our bodies.
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This is the beautifully lyrical design work
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of Professor Neri Oxman at the MIT Media Lab
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showing spacially varying exoskeletal impedances,
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shown here by color variation
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in this 3D-printed model.
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Imagine a future where clothing
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is stiff and soft where you need it,
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when you need it, for optimal support and flexibility,
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without ever causing discomfort.
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My bionic limbs are attached to my biological body
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via synthetic skins
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with stiffness variations
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that mirror my underlying tissue biomechanics.
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To achieve that mirroring,
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we first developed a mathematical model
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of my biological limb.
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To that end, we used imagine tools such as MRI
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to look inside my body
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to figure out the geometries and locations
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of various tissues.
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We also took robotic tools.
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Here's a 14 actuator circle
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that goes around the biological limb.
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The actuators come in, find the surface of the limb,
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measure its unloaded shape,
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and then they push on the tissues
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to measure tissue compliances
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at each anatomical point.
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We combine these imaging and robotic data
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to build a mathematical description
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of my biological limb, shown on the left.
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You see a bunch of points, or nodes.
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At each node, there's a color that
represents tissue compliance.
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We then do a mathematical transformation
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to the design of the synthetic skin
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shown on the right,
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and we've discovered optimality is
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where the body is stiff, the
synthetic skin should be soft,
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where the soft, the synthetic skin is stiff,
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and this mirroring occurs
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across all tissue compliances.
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With this framework,
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we produced bionic limbs
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that are the most comfortable limbs I've ever worn.
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Clearly in the future,
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our clothing, our shoes, our braces,
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our prostheses, will no longer be designed
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and manufactured using artisan strategies,
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but rather data-driven quantitative frameworks.
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In that future, our shoes
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will no longer give us blisters.
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We're also embedding sensing and smart materials
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into the synthetic skins.
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This is a material
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developed by SRI International, California.
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Under electrostatic effect, it changes stiffness.
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So under zero voltage, the material is compliant.
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It's floppy like paper.
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Then the button's pushed, a voltage is applied,
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and it becomes stiff as a board.
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We embed this material into the synthetic skin
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that attaches my bionic limb to my biological body.
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When I walk here,
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it's no voltage.
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My interface is soft and compliant.
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The button's push, voltage is applied,
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and it stiffens,
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offering me a greater maneuverability
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of the bionic limb.
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We're also building exoskeletons.
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This exoskeleton becomes stiff and soft
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in just the right areas of the running cycle
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to protect the biological joints
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from high impacts and degradation.
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In the future, we'll all be wearing exoskeletons
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in such common activities such as running.
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Next, dynamic interface.
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How do my bionic limbs move like flesh and bone?
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At my MIT lab, we study how humans
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with normal physiologies stand, walk, and run.
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What are the muscles doing,
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and how are they controlled by the spinal cord?
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This basic science motivates what we build.
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We're building bionic ankles, knees, and hips.
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We're building body parts from the ground up.
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The bionic limbs that I'm wearing are called BiOMs.
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They've been fitted to nearly a thousand patients,
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four hundred of which have
been U.S. wounded soldiers.
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How does it work? At heel
strike under computer control,
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the system controls stiffness
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to attenuate the shock of the limb hitting the ground.
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Then at mid-stance, the bionic limb outputs
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high torques and powers to lift the person
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into the walking stride,
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comparable to how muscles work in the calf region.
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This bionic propulsion is very important
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clinically to patients.
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So on the left you see the bionic device
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worn by a lady,
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on the right a passive device worn by the same lady
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that fails to emulate normal muscle function,
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enabling her to do something
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everyone should be able to do:
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go up and down their steps at home.
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Bionics also allows for extraordinary athletic feats.
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Here's a gentleman running up a rocky pathway.
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This is Steve Martin, not the comedian,
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who lost his legs in a bomb blast in Aghanistan.
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We're also building exoskeletal structures
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using these same principles
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that wrap around a biological limb.
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This gentleman does not have
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any leg condition, any disability.
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He has a normal physiology,
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so these exoskeletons are applying
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muscle-like torques and powers
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so that his own muscles need not apply
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those torques and powers.
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This is the first exoskeleton in history
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that actually augments human walking.
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It significantly reduces metabolic cost.
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It's so profound in its augmentation
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that when a normal, healthy person
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wears the device for 40 minutes
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and then takes it off,
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their own biological legs
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feel ridiculously heavy and awkward.
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We're beginning the age in which
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machines attached to our bodies
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will make us stronger and faster
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and more efficient.
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Moving on to electrical interface,
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how do my bionic limbs communicate
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with my nervous system?
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Across my residual limb are electrodes
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that measure the electrical pulse of my muscles
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that's communicated to the bionic limb,
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so when I think about moving my phantom limb,
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the robot tracks those movement desires.
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This diagram shows fundamentally
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how the bionic limb is controlled,
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so we model the missing biological limb,
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and we've discovered what reflexes occurred,
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how the reflexes of the spinal cord
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are controlling the muscles,
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and that capability is embedded
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in the chips of the bionic limb.
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What we've done, then, is we modulate
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the sensitivity of the reflex,
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the modeled spinal reflex,
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with the neural signal,
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so when I relax my muscles in my residual limb,
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I get very little torque and power,
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but the more I fire my muscles,
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the more torque I get,
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and I can even run.
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And that was the first demonstration
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of a running gait under neural command.
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Feels great.
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(Applause)
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We want to go a step further.
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We want to actually close the loop
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between the human and the bionic external limb.
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We're doing experiments where we're growing
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nerves, transected nerves,
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through channels, or micro-channel rays.
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On the other side of the channel,
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the nerve then attaches to cells,
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skin cells and muscle cells.
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In the motor channels we can sense
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how the person wishes to move.
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That can be sent out wirelessly to the bionic limb,
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then sensors on the bionic limb
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can be converted to stimulations
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in adjacent channels, sensory channels.
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So when this is fully developed
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and for human use,
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persons like myself will not only have
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synthetic limbs that move like flesh and bone
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but actually feel like flesh and bone.
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This video shows Lisum Lett
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shortly after being fitted with two bionic limbs.
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Indeed, bionics is making
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a profound difference in people's lives.
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(Video) Lisum Lett: Oh my God.
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Oh my God, I can't believe it.
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It's just like I've got a real leg.
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Man: Now turn around,
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and do the same thing walking up.
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Walk up, get on your heel to toe,
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like you would normally just walk on level ground.
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Try to walk right up the hill.
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LL: Oh my God.
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Man: Is it pushing you up?
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LL: Yes! I'm not even, I can't even describe it.
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Man: It's pushing you right up.
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Hugh Herr: Next week, I'm visiting the Center's—
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Thank you, thank you. (Applause)
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Thank you. Next week I'm visiting
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the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
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and I'm going to try to convince CMS
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to grant appropriate code language and pricing
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so this technology can be made available
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to the patients that need it.
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Thank you. (Applause)
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It's not well appreciated, but over half
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of the world's population
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suffers from some form of cognitive,
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emotional, sensory, or motor condition,
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and because of poor technology,
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too often, conditions result in disability
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and a poorer quality of life.
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Basic levels of physiological function
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should be a part of our human rights.
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Every person should have the right
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to live life without disability
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if they so choose:
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the right to live life without severe depression;
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the right to see a loved one
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in the case of seeing impaired;
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or the right to walk or to dance,
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in the case of limb paralysis
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or limb amputation.
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As a society, we can achieve these human rights
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if we accept the proposition
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that humans are not disabled.
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A person can never be broken.
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Our built environment, our technologies,
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are broken and disabled.
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We the people need not accept our limitations,
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but can transcend disability
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through technological innovation.
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Indeed, through fundamental advances
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in bionics in this century,
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we will set the technological foundation
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for an enhanced human experience,
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and we will end disability.
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I'd like to finish up with one more story,
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a beautiful story,
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the story of Adrianne Haslet-Davis.
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Adrianne lost her left leg
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in the Boston terrorist attack.
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I met Adrianne when this photo was taken
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at Spalding rehabilitation hospital.
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Adrianne is a dancer, a ballroom dancer.
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Adrianne breathes and lives dance.
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It is her expression. It is her art form.
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Naturally, when she lost her limb
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in the Boston terrorist attack,
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she wanted to return to the dance floor.
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After meeting her and driving home in my car,
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I thought, I'm an MIT professor.
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I have resources. Let's build her a bionic limb
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to enable her to go back to her life of dance.
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I brought in MIT scientists with expertise
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in prosthetics, robotics, machine learning,
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and biomechanics,
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and over a 200-day research period,
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we studied dance.
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We brought in dancers with biological limbs,
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and we studied how do they move,
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what forces do they apply on the dance floor,
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and we took those data
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and we put forth fundamental principles of dance,
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reflexive dance capability,
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and we embedded that intelligence
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into the bionic limb.
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Bionics is not only about making people
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stronger and faster.
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Our expression, our humanity
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can be embedded into electromechanics.
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It was 3.5 seconds
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between the bomb blasts
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in the Boston terrorist attack.
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In 3.5 seconds, the criminals and cowards
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took Adrianne off the dance floor.
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In 200 days, we put her back.
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We will not be intimidated, brought down,
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diminished, conquered, or stopped
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by acts of violence.
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(Applause)
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Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce
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Adrianne Haslet-Davis,
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her first performance since the attack.
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She's dancing with Christian Lightner.
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(Applause)
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(Music: "Ring My Bell" performed by Enrique Iglesias)
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(Applause)
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Ladies and gentlemen,
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members of the research team,
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Elliott Rouse and Nathan Villagaray-Carski.
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Elliott and Nathan.
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(Applause)
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 6/22/2015.