Full video

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imagine if you had an extra thumb will

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the amazing things you would be able to

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do like play the guitar faster or eat a

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bag of chips with one hand it's

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delicious well we went to the University

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of Cambridge to find out what amazing

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things we could do with

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it the third thumb is a 3D printed extra

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thumb for your hand that's controlled

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with your toes I was really trying to

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investigate that relationship between

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the wearer and prosthetic I wanted to

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feel what it was like to be in control

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of something that I was wearing but that

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had kind of this proportional control

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that was responding to my movements what

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I really envisioned for the third fil is

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more specific workplaces that then you

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do a slight redesign so for example I've

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spoken with a shoulder surgeon and he

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was really interested in being able to

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hold his multiple tools at the same time

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rather than collaborate with an

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assistant so how did Danny start working

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on the third thumb I've always been

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interested in designing for the body I

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think that's so much more interesting as

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a as a products owner and then it wasn't

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until uh my masters at the Royal College

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B that I really started exploring

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Prosthetics I'm not a medical

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professional working in Prosthetics uh

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in the medical field that is a whole

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kind of different area I'm working in

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this more exploratory field we're trying

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to split it off into prosthetic versus

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augmentation and I just kind of see it

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all in the same movement we're just

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extending the human body an ampute is

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completely different to A congenital

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one-hander yet societal perception is

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that they just have one arm and so

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they're they're missing something and

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that's not true and so if we start to

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try to like Silo this technology like

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this is for augmentation and this is for

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Prosthetics it's the same technology

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we're just talking about how you feel

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about that person and also they might

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not feel about that themselves is it a

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prosthetic is it for someone without a

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thumb or is it augmentation for someone

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worth two thumbs it's both uh or it's

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either and or it totally depends on the

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wearer Danny's invention went viral

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online which meant her master's project

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turned into much more than just that

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when it went viral online I thought

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that's kind of where it would live in

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this online space that people could go

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uh or uh you know and and really kind of

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spark these discussions and I had just

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would have thousands of comments on on

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videos and stuff like that of people

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going either way or also emailing me and

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letting me know their feelings about it

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as well and that's where I thought it

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would live and then U but now it's uh in

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a whole different space could we give it

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to our one of our crew

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yes absolutely you're crew can try

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one cool we're putting a third thumb on

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you today so we're going to go through

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this one first and then through there

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and then just going to turn on your

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ankles back to my feet your left foot is

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going to control the kind of up and back

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and your right foot is is the kind of

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dominant foot is going to control the

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across and back

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and yeah there you go you're doing

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great so this is still like first minute

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of

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use I feel like a natural yeah you look

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like a natural should we give you your

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first object I'd love to okay so right

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and press and

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hold at

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that how many can you normally pick up

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cuz you have quite

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large I can hold up three oranges in my

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hand I can hold four oranges my hand

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with the third thumb

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cam

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I think that

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counts thank

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you two

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sugars

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no it's

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delicious should I take a drink oh

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no it happens to the best of us so just

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so you know we're going to have to put

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you in an MRI scanner later oh okay

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we're going to be testing your

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brain cool and they actually did test my

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brain brain so that the activity inside

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it when I was using the third thumb

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could be studied by Professor Tamar Mak

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it's not claustrophobic at all in here

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my name is Tamal megin and I'm a

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professor of cognitive neuroscience and

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my role is to run the lab that we call

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the plasticity Lab in Cambridge

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University I got this big rant meant to

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help me start establishing the first

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frontiers of human augmentation

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specifically allowing people to have

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extra body parts a colleague of mine

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told me he just watched this video of

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this extra robotic thumb that just looks

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amazing I've asked my student who was

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running the project at the time if she

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can try hunt down this person Danny

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Claude and that's how we start working

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together the interesting thing about the

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body and the brain is that you can't

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change one without the other when we're

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thinking about adding extra body parts

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or replacing body parts we are

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immediately implicating the brain if we

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could harness this technology in a

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thoughtful and responsible way we could

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really offer an incredible new

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opportunity for Humanity to improve

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productivity since coming to Cambridge

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University how much has Danny's vision

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of the third thumb changed the

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fundamentals from the first prototype

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are definitely the same I certainly

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didn't think it would be so similar

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which I'm so quite impressed with and

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managed to to like make it good the

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first time when the neuroscientists like

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kind of Started collaborating With Me on

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it I thought that they'd get rid of the

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foot control pretty quickly but it has

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lasted because is it works so well we

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had almost 600 participants come and try

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the third thumb for the first time and

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then we asked them to do a task within a

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minute 98% of people could could use the

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third thumb within the first minute

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which is really important for pieces of

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Technology like this so how's my brain

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activity looking tomorrow my clever

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students have processed the information

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that the machine has gathered and we can

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look and see what happens when St uses

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the thumb and what we find is that the

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brain areas that control the foot and

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control the hand they light up once he's

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using his third thumb over a longer

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period of time we might start seeing

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changes where the brain

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reconfiguratron he has a beautiful uh

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activity in the right place to the right

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amount he has a wonderful brain activity

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oh thank goodness for

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that Danny is a rock star to me I work

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with so many gifted people so smart so

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talented Danny is all of that but she's

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also uh able to combine wonderful

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creativity with practicality which is a

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very complex combination to

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achieve I don't don't don't think I'd be

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doing this if I only collaborated with

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other designers I'm collaborating with

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neuroscientists and anthropologists and

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engineers and artists and that's what

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kind of makes this work so Dynamic I'm

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constantly surprised that I'm still

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working on the third thumb I'm I'm

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amazed that this thing that I made uh

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during my master's degree is now being

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used for phds in neuroscience at

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Cambridge University that's so mad to me

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and so inspiring and keeps pushing me

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forward to make it

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better

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feel the signups is firing in your mind

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I I did feel like the sign upses were

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popping uh in my mind they were moving

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crazy

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[Laughter]

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