A TED-Talk about bio-replacements. VERY interesting. I thought I'd share (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Hehehe. I didn't expect the "You 2.0" part to have come from the presenter, I thought that was you.

Put me in for a new set of knees. Mine have been bad before I was a teenager.

makes me think of nuke tendons from SLA industries.

heck, i think there was a wired story about something similar, where they would replace a elbow tendon on a athlete with the equivalent from some other area of the body, and the end result was enhanced performance.

bingo, found it: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/betterbody.html

Oh man, I hope this becomes easy and affordable within the next decade. I'm already walking with a cane more than half the time, lets not even talk about my hands...

Sexual satisfaction is now possible through surgery. A device modeled
on a stimulator commonly used to stop pain is implanted near the base
of a woman's spine. Activated wirelessly with a handheld device, it uses
electric current to directly excite the nerves that cause orgasm.

Oh gosh! XD
I think I've heard about it though. The women were constantly thumbing the device up to keep them right on the threshold of climax.

heh, there was a accidental discovery with rats at one point, where electrodes where wired to the wrong part of the brain. End result was that the rats would slap a button until passing out from fatigue. For a long time it was believed that the scientists had accidentally wired the pleasure center of the brain, but recently it was found that it was instead the area of the brain controlling curiosity or foraging. It seems we mammals get stimulation from hunting and gathering. No wonder shopping can be addictive. So yes, its quite possible to wire a body for pleasure.

Oh no doubt. The problem would be keeping people from having it constantly stimulated.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w...ence_fiction%29

especially when its cheaper then any chemical or entertainment medium.

See also: BTL

BTL is more like TV turned to 11.

With a 7.1 5000 watts soundsystem. On a 5x2 meter uber-HD beamer projection. In your head.

With a direct neural connection to your pleasure center (and pain, love, hate, etc. etc.)

TED is always good for some shadowrun-like future tech. Check out this one (from 2005)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJsHRltEVBc

It covers Bioware - Nanoenginered Red blood cells thatwould allow people to sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of a pool for 4 hours.

Also predicting FULL IMERSION VIRTUAL REALITY by 2029! - Has no one told him of the crash that year?

It also gives you an idea of the speed ot technology growth and that we may not have to wait for the 2070's for some of the tech, its also a tad optermistic predicting the end of computers as seperate enterties and direct to retina data by 2010

I like the first comment there:

Yeah, I thought the line was so fitting, I just HAD to use it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Nigel Findley put it best... 2XS. Supposedly, it was better than real and more addictive. Ah... I miss his SR writing.

Stem cells? Old mews, kits.

Trans-species implants? Yeesh, you're looking at months of recovery. Ligaments make sense, but...

Polyethylene Glycol hydrogels.
The PEG.

It's the stuff. It is a foamed hydrogel which acts as a scaffold, and slow release mechanism for either dish-grown chondrocytes or just Transforming Growth Factor-Beta proteins. Not only does it provide for natural regeneration of the body's own tissues, but it also acts as a built-in pad for instant relief.
So, you walk in to the doctor, they jab you with a needle and squirt this biz all up in your meniscus area and it provides an instant temporary relief which, as it wears off, transforms into a permanent relief via cellular regeneration. Problem solved in a day, stays solved for a lifetime.

PEG hydrogels have even been used to promote regeneration of nerve cells, and, therefore, they could potentially be useful in fixing the roughed up Glial cells which are a cause/symptom of some forms of dementia and schizophrenia.

There's research going on at University of Colorado, Boulder and in the Netherlands at the University of Twente, Enschede. Who knows, they might need volunteers? It's the best means of cellular graft I've come across since that Master P movie, I Got Da Hookup... about the stolen.. cellphones.. But no, seriously, it's amazing. A new means of long-term, tissue-direct medicinal delivery. It'll be everywhere in 5 years.