Prosthetics
Prosthetic limbs used to consist of the wooden peg legs and rusty iron hooks harkening back to the days of pirates like Hook in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Though pirating has returned, both cyber and high seas, today's pirates do not have to suffer the uselessness of a meat hook or the splinters of a peg leg. Instead, today's technologically advanced medical world can provide them with designer legs strong enough to sprint. In 2008 Oscar Pistorious, a double below the knee amputee, tried out for the South African Olympic team achieving a 46.25 second time in the 400 meter dash; however, he needed a 45.55 second time to qualify (Patel, 2008). Though Pistorious didn't qualify, his story demonstrates the greatly improved quality of life of amputees due to prosthetics. Additionally, advances in prosthetic arms are achieving abilities to the point where a patient regains the ability to perform simple and some complex tasks. Further development in prosthesis could one day even replace one of the most important organs in the human body, the heart. With such growth, the possibility of one day being able to project yourself into an alternative reality like Second Life may be possible.