Olympian achievements await robotic prosthetics
首届机器人假肢“奥运会”
广州会议翻译公司：即将开幕的首届神经机械假肢奥运会Cybathlon，并非高科技版的残奥会，而是展示创新辅助科技如何帮助残疾人克服日常生活挑战。
Perfectly honed bodies, controlled by perfectly composed minds, will tomorrow officially begin living the motto of the Olympic Games: citius, altius, fortius (faster, higher, stronger). Such is the extreme physical aptitude on display that sofa-bound spectators might be left wondering whether Olympians are perhaps some kind of alien superspecies.
奥运会上，在绝对冷静的头脑控制下的经过完美训练的身体，践行着奥运会的格言：“更快，更高，更强”(citius, altius, fortius)。奥运会选手展示出的极高的身体素质，或许会让窝在沙发里的观众们惊叹，这些人会不会是某种外星超级物种？广州会议翻译公司。
The sentiment is misplaced: an average, functioning human body is itself a masterpiece of engineering, something a fact most apparent when things go wrong. That sofa-bound spectator — let us imagine her sitting down on a sofawith her feet up enjoying tea and a biscuit — is unwittingly accomplishing feats of motor control and co-ordination that are almost impossible to replicate using robotics. Scientists who develop prostheses struggle to make artificial limbs that work as well as their natural counterparts, a. This is the challenge that underpins an alternative Olympic-style event taking place in Zurich in October.
这种想法并不恰当：一个机能运作正常的普通人的身体，本身就是一件工程学杰作；当出现问题的时候，这个事实会变得再明显不过。跷着腿坐在沙发上、喝茶吃饼干的观众，在不经意间完成了动作控制和协调的壮举，这是当前的机器人技术几乎不可能复制的。开发假肢的科学家们难以制作出和人类四肢一样灵活有用的假肢。10月将在苏黎世举行的一场另类的奥运会式活动，正是面对这个挑战。
The Cybathlon, billed as the first cy­borg Olympics, is no faux Paralympics: the stars of the show will be the cutting-edge assistive technologies on display, not the disabled humans to which they are attached. Aspiring cy­clists, for example, will pedal by having their muscles electrically stimulated. By contrast, Para­lympians compete under their own muscular steam, using only commercially available devices.
被称为首届半机械人(cy­borg)奥运会的Cybathlon，并不是对残奥会的模仿：这场表演的明星将是展出的尖端辅助科技，而不是与它们连接的残疾人士。比如，参加自行车赛事的选手将通过电刺激肌肉来踩踏板。相比之下，残奥会运动员只使用市售设备，借助自身的肌肉动力来投入比赛。广州会议翻译公司。
At the Cybathlon more than 80 research groups drawn from 25 countries will battle it out at Zurich’s ice hockey stadium. It is not the usual sporting fare. Competitors vying in the prosthetic arm event will not be making wobbly attempts at the shot put; instead, theywill prepare a meal and hang washing on a line. Those in the prosthetic leg event will navigate stairs, uneven floors and doorways.
在Cybathlon上，来自25个国家的逾80个研究团队将在苏黎世冰球馆一决高下。这不是通常意义上的运动赛事。动力臂膀假肢赛的参赛者不会摇摇晃晃地尝试投掷铅球，而是会做一顿饭，把洗好的衣物挂在一根线绳上。那些动力腿部假肢赛的人将走台阶、不平的地面和门廊。
Perhaps the most unusual event, reports the journal Nature, is a test of brain-computer interfaces: 15 competitors will try to move a screen character with their minds (or, rather, with brain activity). Three distinct manoeuvres — accelerate, jump and roll — are needed to complete the onscreen obstacle course, with each move requiring a specific pattern of brain activity.
据《自然》(Nature)杂志报道，最不同寻常的比赛也许是脑机接口比赛：15名参赛者将试图利用他们的头脑（或者更确切地说是他们的大脑活动）来移动屏幕上的小人。要完成屏幕上的障碍赛，参赛者需要操控小人完成3种不同的动作——加速、跳跃和滚动，每一种都需要特定的大脑活动模式。广州会议翻译公司。
Similar technology could eventually allow paralysed individuals to guide their wheelchairs using thought alone. Earlier This year, researchers in the US showed that monkeys implanted with brain devices could control a wheelchair in this way.
类似的技术最终可能让瘫痪人士仅依靠大脑活动来导引自己的轮椅。今年早些时候，美国的研究者展示，植入脑部装置的猴子能够以这种方式控制轮椅。
The Cybathlon is the brainchild design of Professor Robert Riener, a biomedical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who wanted to make people aware that while life-changing technology exists in the laboratory it was not reaching those who needed it.
Cybathlon的构思者是瑞士联邦理工学院苏黎世分校(Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich)生物医学工程师罗伯特•里纳(Robert Riener)教授，他想让人们意识到，尽管实验室中存在能够改变人生的科技，但这些科技并没有造福于那些需要的人们。
He considered organising stunts such as mountain climbing with prosthetic limbs but changed his mind after realising that it was ordinary activities that wearers of prosthetic limbs found most challenging. For example, mimicking the incredible strength and flexibility of human fingers — which can both crush a can and hold an egg without breaking it — has for decades been the dream of biomedical engineers. Yet many artificial hands still largely comprise hooks and cables.
他考虑过组织一些高难度活动，比如利用假肢爬山，但在意识到对假肢使用者而言最具挑战的其实是日常活动后，他改变了主意。比如，模仿人类手指不可思议的力量和灵活性（既可以捏扁一个罐子，也能够在不捏碎鸡蛋的情况下握住它），数十年来一直是生物医学工程师的梦想。然而，很多假手基本上仍然由钩子和电缆构成。广州会议翻译公司。
One company feeling its way to success is Open Bionics, a crowdfunded start-up that started founded in a Bristol bedroomthat uses 3D printing to make relatively cheap, advanced artificial hands that can grip eggs. The company is now designing film-inspired prostheses for children, such as the Iron Man hand.
一家有望取得成功的公司是Open Bionics。这是一家通过众筹成立的初创企业，使用3D打印技术制造相对廉价、先进、能够握住鸡蛋的人工假手。该公司正以电影为灵感来源——如《钢铁侠》(Iron Man)的手——设计面向儿童的假肢。
The Cybathlon does exactly what technology competitions are supposed to do: it attracts big players while wink­ling out smaller outfits flying under the radar. There is already a buzz around one competitor’s cut-price 3D-printed exoskeleton with windscreen-wiper motors for joints. Contests also encourage engineers to push their not-quite-perfect creations out of the lab and into the real world. There are nearly 2m amputees in the US alone, and millions more worldwide who have lost limbs to cancer, diabetes, trauma and war. They want progress, not perfection.
Cybathlon所做的正是科技竞赛理应做的事情：在吸引大型团队的同时，发掘名不见经传的较小型团队。一个参赛团队研发的廉价3D打印动力外骨骼在关节处采用雨刷用马达，已经引起人们的热议。比赛还鼓励工程师把不那么完美的发明从实验室里拿出来，推向现实世界。仅在美国就有近200万截肢人士，世界各地还有数百万更多的人因为癌症、糖尿病、创伤和战争失去了一部分肢体。他们想要的是进展，而不是完美。
The writer is a science commentator
本文作者是科学评论员
