The first Cybathlon pushed the limits of bionic technology

Andre van Rüschen slowly climbed a five-step ramp at the end of his race. With a black processor strapped to his back and leg supports on either side of his lower limbs, he stayed focused on the body-machine coordination that was keeping him upr...

Pushing the limits of exoskeleton technology at the Cybathlon

Andre van Rüschen has no memory of the day he lost all feeling in his legs. After a car accident in Germany, he had a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. When he woke up from a coma in a hospital in Hamburg, the docto...

Powered prosthetics turn mundane tasks into monumental feats

Lukas Kalemba was walking home with some friends after a night of partying and drinking in Dortmund, Germany, in 2003. While crossing a bridge along the way, he stopped to rest but lost his balance and fell over. In an attempt to break his fall, he i...

Powered prosthetics turn mundane tasks into monumental feats

Lukas Kalemba was walking home with some friends after a night of partying and drinking in Dortmund, Germany, in 2003. While crossing a bridge along the way, he stopped to rest but lost his balance and fell over. In an attempt to break his fall, he i...

A bike accident left him paralyzed; electricity let him ride again

During a prerun of the Baja 1000, one of the world's most treacherous off-road races, Michael McClellan rode his dirt bike out to the front. He traversed the rough terrain of Mexico's northwest peninsula, eventually coming up hard on a washed-up brea...

Superhumans: Inside the world’s first cyborg games

Thousands of miles from the drama of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one man has been quietly plotting his own competition; a previously impossible event melding human and machine. His name is Robert Reiner, and next month, in Zurich...