Question

11 think about the information presented in the article. do you think bionics will have positive or negative effects on most peoples lives? cite evidence from the selection to support your answer.
12 in the second - to - last paragraph of the selection, the author states that technology will sneak its way into our lives. explain the meaning of this statement. cite two details from the selection to support your answer.
the superhuman frontier
10 the 7,000 - mile - away prosthetic arm makes an important point: these new prostheses arent just going to restore missing human abilities. theyre going to enhance our abilities, giving us powers we never had before, and augmenting other capabilities we have. while the current generation of prostheses is still primitive, we can already see this taking shape when a monkey moves a robotic arm on the other side of the planet just by thinking about it.
11 other research is pointing to enhancements to memory and decision making.
12 the hippocampus is a small, seahorse - shaped part of the brain thats essential in forming new memories. if its damaged—by an injury to the head, for example—people start having difficulty forming new long - term memories. in the most extreme cases, this can lead to the complete inability to form new long - term memories, as in the film memento. working to find a way to repair this sort of brain damage, researchers in 2011 created a \hippocampus chip\ that can replace damaged brain tissue. when they implanted it in rats with a damaged hippocampus, they found that not only could their chip repair damaged memory—it could improve the rats ability to learn new things.
13 nor is memory the end of it. another study, in 2012, demonstrated that we can boost intelligence—at least one sort—in monkeys. scientists at wake forest university implanted specialized brain chips in a set of monkeys and trained those monkeys to perform a picture - matching game. when the implant was activated, it raised their scores by an average of 10 points on a 100 - point scale. the implant makes monkeys smarter.
annotate: circle the heading on this page. underline details in paragraphs 10 - 13 that help you understand what the heading means.
analyze: does the heading help you predict the main idea of this section? confirm your prediction by writing the main idea in a sentence.
identify main idea and details
annotate: underline the main idea in paragraph 11. circle key details that give more information about this main idea.
evaluate: why do you think the author chose to state the main idea later in the paragraph instead of in the first sentence?

Explanation:

1. Bionics can have positive effects as new prostheses enhance abilities (e.g., monkey controlling robotic arm by thinking). It can also help in memory - repair and intelligence - boost as shown by hippocampus chip and monkey brain - chip experiments.
2. The statement means technology will gradually and subtly become a part of daily life. For example, the hippocampus chip for memory repair and the brain - chip in monkeys to boost intelligence show how technology is entering our lives in unexpected ways to improve human and animal capabilities.

Answer:

1. Bionics are likely to have positive effects on most people's lives. New prostheses can enhance human abilities, like a monkey controlling a robotic arm through thought. Also, research on memory - repair (hippocampus chip) and intelligence - boosting (monkey brain - chip) shows potential benefits.
2. The statement "technology will sneak its way into our lives" means technology will gradually and unobtrusively become an integral part of daily life. Details: A hippocampus chip was created to repair damaged brain tissue related to memory, and specialized brain chips in monkeys were used to boost intelligence.