We all secretly hope that should we ever fall ill to a serious disease that doctors will have the right technology available with which to cure us. Today we have a lot more cause for hope than 10 years ago, for example.
Numerous world-leading experts recognize the past decade as a golden age of medicine. In just this short period of time, scientists have invented medical technologies which at the dawn of the decade still seemed like science fiction.
Here are the 8 greatest medical breakthroughs made in the past 10 years:
Robotic prosthetics
By studying how the brain sends signals to the limbs to make them move, scientists have created prostheses which an amputee can control with the power of their consciousness.
Mobile sperm
Nowadays, thanks to science, sterility is almost fully treatable. This is possible thanks to so-called "sperm taxis". This is a slang term of course. The technology consists of miniature nanobots which attach to a sperm cell and increase its speed, allowing it to easily fertilize an egg cell.
A successful penis transplantation
In 2015, a team of doctors in Cape Town, South Africa, completed the first penis transplantation in the world. The patient was a young man who had tried to circumcise himself. The medical professionals were successfully able to connect the blood vessels with the nervous system of the victim thanks to a technique they developed.
A brain implant that stops seizures
The implant that was invented in 2012, NeuroPace, uses electrical stimulation to successfully stop epileptic seizures.
The 1st bionic eye
In 2013, scientists created a visual prosthetic that allows people with damaged eyes to see once again.
The 1st successful face transplant
Patrick Hardison became the 1st person to receive the 1st successful face transplant, after suffering severe trauma when his face was burned.
Same sex couples can have their own babies
Thanks to the delicate manipulation of stem cells, scientists can create egg or sperm cells from members of the same sex.
Almost every body part can be made on a 3D printer
2015 was an incredible year for the development of 3D technology for medical purposes. Every bone in the human body can now be printed and replaced.
