Bionics is the branch of scientific research based on the use of "models of living sytems... in order to find new ideas for useful artificial machines" (definition from the Encyclopaedia Britannica online).
An article in today's Excite News refers about a "man" walking and breathing with artificial parts. Actually, the "man" is a robot made up of sophisticated pieces of technology, with a face modelled after a real living person and dressed up with clothes form Harrods, London.
It's interesting to learn about the reaction of the creators at their first sight of their Creature.
"How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips." (Dr. Frankenstein).
"I thought it was rather revolting to be honest," he says. "It was quite a shock to see a face that closely resembles what I see in the mirror every morning on this kind of dystopian looking machine." (Bertolt Meyer).
Ugliness is not the only motive for these reactions. Can you imagine any other?
