The Future

A glimpse of the future: Robots aid Japan’s elderly residents

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

TOKYO — It looks like a scene from Robocop or one of the Terminator movies: A human steps into a sleek robot suit and is miraculously transformed, suddenly capable of astonishing feats of strength.

But this is no sci-fi film — it’s a promotional video by Cyberdyne, a Japanese electronics company. It shows an elderly male patient with Parkinson’s disease being strapped into a robotic skeleton that, using sensors attached to the wearer’s skin, reacts to nerve impulses and moves its “arms” and “legs” accordingly.

The robotic suit, known as the Hybrid Assisted Limb (or HAL), is designed to boost its wearer’s strength by a multiple of 10. In July, it allowed the patient at the Seiko En nursing home in Tsurugashima, Japan, to walk for the first time in two years, Cyberdyne CEO Yoshiyuki Sankai says.

Huge truck explosion clogs north-side traffic

This is what is happening in Indy near me. I meant to put this up when it happened but didnt soooo here it is now.

A liquid propane tanker exploded on an Indianapolis highway ramp on Thursday morning, shooting a fireball of flames and black smoke into the sky and closing a section of two of the city’s major expressways.

The explosion closed Interstates 69 and 465 on the northeast side of the city.