The Dawn of the Bionic Man
The DailyYou’re reading The New Yorker’s daily newsletter, a guide to our top stories, featuring exclusive insights from our writers and editors. Sign up to receive it in your in-box.In today’s newsletter, Inkoo Kang on the year in TV. But, first, a new kind of prosthetic limb depends on carbon fibre and computer chips—and the reëngineering of muscles, tendons, and bone. Plus:The disappointment of Spotify WrappedKendrick Lamar had a great yearAre you overreacting?Hugh Herr, left, an M.I.T. engineer whose lower legs were amputated after a climbing accident, imagines a future in which “we will be able to sculpt our own brains and bodies.”Photographs by Mark Seliger for The New YorkerRivka GalchenStaff writerAs a kid, I found a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat charming and adorable. But when a magician would say, “Think about a number,” and then, after a bit of chatty buildup, tell me that I was thinking about the three of clubs—and I was!—that mind-reading was thrilling. The paper in Nature Medicine that inspired my piece in this week’s issue was titled, with the classic flat affect of scientific journals, “Continuous Neural Control of a Bionic Limb Restores Biomimetic Gait After Amputation.” It describes a leg prosthesis that can move as a brain wants it to move, one that follows the directions of both the conscious and the unconscious. Or, you might say, a leg that can read its user’s mind. There was no “magic trick” I was more keen to understand.As is often the case in science, learning in detail how something works doesn’t diminish the feeling of mystery but instead expands and refines it. Visiting Hugh Herr’s Biomechatronics Group at M.I.T.’s Media Lab—where they are working on mind-reading appendages—was the beginning of a redirection of my wonder. When I started reporting this story, my attention was on marvels made of wires and metal. Soon my focus shifted to the more awesome and everyday capacities we tend not to notice—those of the human body, and the human mind. Read “A Bionic Leg Controlled by the Brain” »The LedeThe Hollow Allure of Spotify WrappedSpotify Wrapped disappointed this year. Users criticized the app’s use of A.I., its alleged distorted data, and its uninspired presentation. “To dispirited fans,” Brady Brickner-Wood writes, “Spotify Wrapped suddenly seems less like an honoring of personal taste and more an ingenious user-generated content farm that benefits the bottom line and brand recognition of a corporation chiefly concerned with profit margins and squashing its competition.” Read the story »More Top StoriesThe Best TV Shows of 2024Kendrick Lamar’s Year on TopAre You Overreacting?Paul Valéry Would Prefer Not ToDaily Cartoon“I wouldn’t have given him that magic hat if I’d known he would be this clingy.”Cartoon by Lars KensethCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copiedShopShopMore Fun & GamesPlay today’s moderately challenging puzzle. A clue: Baseball’s Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp or Sugar Land Space Cowboys. Seven letters.P.S. “Tenth of December,” a short story by George Saunders published in the magazine in 2011, follows a “pale boy with unfortunate Prince Valiant bangs and cublike mannerisms” on a frosty day as he attempts to retrieve Suzanne Bledsoe, a new girl in homeroom, from the creatures who have kidnapped her. The creatures, called Netherworlders, “planned to use her to repopulate their depleted numbers and bake various things they did not know how to bake.”
In today’s newsletter, Inkoo Kang on the year in TV. But, first, a new kind of prosthetic limb depends on carbon fibre and computer chips—and the reëngineering of muscles, tendons, and bone. Plus:
Rivka Galchen
Staff writer
As a kid, I found a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat charming and adorable. But when a magician would say, “Think about a number,” and then, after a bit of chatty buildup, tell me that I was thinking about the three of clubs—and I was!—that mind-reading was thrilling. The paper in Nature Medicine that inspired my piece in this week’s issue was titled, with the classic flat affect of scientific journals, “Continuous Neural Control of a Bionic Limb Restores Biomimetic Gait After Amputation.” It describes a leg prosthesis that can move as a brain wants it to move, one that follows the directions of both the conscious and the unconscious. Or, you might say, a leg that can read its user’s mind. There was no “magic trick” I was more keen to understand.
As is often the case in science, learning in detail how something works doesn’t diminish the feeling of mystery but instead expands and refines it. Visiting Hugh Herr’s Biomechatronics Group at M.I.T.’s Media Lab—where they are working on mind-reading appendages—was the beginning of a redirection of my wonder. When I started reporting this story, my attention was on marvels made of wires and metal. Soon my focus shifted to the more awesome and everyday capacities we tend not to notice—those of the human body, and the human mind. Read “A Bionic Leg Controlled by the Brain” »
The Lede
The Hollow Allure of Spotify Wrapped
Spotify Wrapped disappointed this year. Users criticized the app’s use of A.I., its alleged distorted data, and its uninspired presentation. “To dispirited fans,” Brady Brickner-Wood writes, “Spotify Wrapped suddenly seems less like an honoring of personal taste and more an ingenious user-generated content farm that benefits the bottom line and brand recognition of a corporation chiefly concerned with profit margins and squashing its competition.” Read the story »
- The Best TV Shows of 2024
- Kendrick Lamar’s Year on Top
- Are You Overreacting?
- Paul Valéry Would Prefer Not To
Daily Cartoon
P.S. “Tenth of December,” a short story by George Saunders published in the magazine in 2011, follows a “pale boy with unfortunate Prince Valiant bangs and cublike mannerisms” on a frosty day as he attempts to retrieve Suzanne Bledsoe, a new girl in homeroom, from the creatures who have kidnapped her. The creatures, called Netherworlders, “planned to use her to repopulate their depleted numbers and bake various things they did not know how to bake.”
