The Bionic…Turtle?

A Texan green sea turtle will soon receive the world's first prosthetic turtle flipper, according to the Associated Press. When she was found by tourists on the beach—bloody, five-inches long, and missing three of her flippers—experts had little hope for survival. In fact, rescue workers planned to put her out of her misery as green sea turtles with only one flipper rarely survive. Now, thanks to antibiotic injections and squid dinners, she’s grown to normal size and can swim, if only in circles. Her flipperlessness makes surviving in the wild nearly impossible, and Atlantic green sea turtles can live as long as 100 years and grow to 450 pounds. So a University of Texas doctor, using the same materials used to create facial prosthesis for humans, is designing a hand-painted silicon flipper that could be ready for test runs in only a few weeks. No word yet on whether this technical aide will prohibit competition in the 2008 turtle Olympics.