![](\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2017.07\/thumbnail\/59574c14dda4c8fb6d8b4569.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Two retired army veterans who lost their arms more than 40 years ago have received revolutionary prosthetic limbs developed by the Pentagon. Their new futuristic arms, which are named after Luke Skywalker, can pick up small objects as fragile as an egg.<\/p>\n
\u201cStirring with this, I\u2019m cutting with that, dicing,\u201d<\/em> Fred Downs said<\/a>, as cited by CBS news. Downs lost his left arm below the elbow after being injured in the Vietnam War.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the fun part of being able to use two hands to get all the vegetables prepared, and the meat prepared, and start the grill, and hold plates,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he continued.<\/p>\n The second recipient, Artie McAuley, a retired Army captain who lost his left arm in a car accident, was also thrilled to receive his new limb. In order to lift the arm, an amputee has to lift his foot. Sensors in the wearer\u2019s shoes then pick up the motion and put the prosthetic limb into action. \u201cYou have to be smart to do this,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0McAuley\u00a0said<\/a>, as cited by AFP.\u00a0\u201cOnce in a while, I make a mistake!\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Both showed off their new arms at a veterans\u2019 hospital called the VA New York Harbor Health Care System in New York. Downs used his new thumb and index finger to peel a banana.<\/p>\n \u201cThese may seem like very simple, routine things, but to someone who can\u2019t do it, to be able to be given this function it\u2019s like magic,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0said Downs.<\/p>\n The prosthetics are dubbed LUKE, an acronym for Life Under Kinetic Evolution. They were partially named after the Star Wars character Luke Skywalker, who needed a prosthetic arm after fighting Darth Vader.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0website\u00a0<\/a>of Mobius Bionics, the company that manufactured the limb, LUKE is\u00a0\u201cconfigurable for different levels of amputation, including transradial, transhumeral, and shoulder disarticulation.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The arm has 10 powered joints that can be moved at the same time and at least four different grips, the statement from the website says.<\/p>\n The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a US Department of Defense agency that develops technologies for military use, and DEKA Research & Development Corporation contributed to the development of the mechanism.<\/p>\n The limbs give\u00a0\u201cunprecedented, near-natural arm and hand motion,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0a DARPA press release says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe LUKE system has a fully functional, articulated shoulder joint, which offers unprecedented mobility and quality of life even for individuals with total arm loss,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the statement\u00a0adds<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n FDA\u2019s Center for Devices and Radiological Health approved the LUKE prosthetic back in 2014. Invented by Dean Kamen at DEKA Research, LUKE is\u00a0\u201cpart of a $100 million initiative to revolutionize prosthetics,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0according to the DEKA\u00a0statement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUp to this point, design in prosthetic arms has been limited to incremental changes. We developed the LUKE arm to change the game for amputees\u2014creating an innovative, integrated system that offers greater functionality and independence to our wounded warriors and other amputees,\u201d Kamen said back in the summer of 2016.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two retired army veterans who lost their arms more than 40 years ago have received revolutionary prosthetic limbs developed by the Pentagon. Their new futuristic arms, which are named after Luke Skywalker, can pick up small objects as fragile as an egg. \u201cStirring with this, I\u2019m cutting with that, dicing,\u201d Fred Downs said, as cited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":315375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-315374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}