WHEN Darth Vader chops off Luke Skywalker's hand in the movie "The Empire Strikes Back," Star Wars' favorite hero helps himself to a robotic prosthesis and proceeds on his merry way.

Thanks to technology, this sci-fi scenario is closer to reality than many people realize, said Dr. Roy Aaron, an orthopedic surgeon and director of the Center for Restorative and Regenerative Medicine at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Providence, R.I.

Aaron predicts that bio-hybrid limbs will be commercially available within three years, and that lifelike prostheses with ...

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