This is not another scene from "Star Wars" or "Transformers." Tim Hemmes from Pennsylvania is making good use of his new mechanical limb, the result of a month-long science experiment at the University of Pittsburgh.

Hemmes, who became a quadriplegic after a motorcycle accident, is among those involved in the bold search to give paralyzed individuals more self-sufficiency, from embracing their loved ones to eating by themselves to grasping an object through "thought-controlled prosthetics," the Times of India reported.

The objective is to combine mind and machine. It can be described as the "most humanlike bionic arm with the fingers bending like real ones all because of the miniscule memory chips embedded in the brain."

Electrodes make use of electric signals from the brain cells, which circumvent a broken spinal chord, transmitting signals to the robotic arm and controlling movements.

Michael McLoughlin of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory said resources are being poured into the program from a $100 million project for DARPA, the Pentagon's research agency.

The DARPA arm was created principally for amputees. An independent research is being conducted to allow them move the arm by utilizing transplanted nerves to perceive those brain commands.

With paralytics, the challenge is more complicated since it means conveying the signals around a shattered spinal cord.

The Times of India reports that "Pittsburgh is helping to lead a closely watched series of government-funded studies over the next two years to try to find out. A handful of quadriplegic volunteers will train their brains to operate the DARPA arm in increasingly sophisticated ways, even using sensors implanted in its fingertips to try to feel what they touch, while scientists explore which electrodes work best."

"We really are at a tipping point now with this technology with all the joints that are in your human hand," said Pittsburgh neurobiologist Andrew Schwartz.

Scientists use implanted electrodes for quadriplegic patients. These are called "brain-computer interface" or BCI, to keep details of electrical activity. The signals move down through wires that go through under the skin and out by the collarbone, and are plugged into a computer or a robotic arm.

Hemmes compared moving the DARPA arm to learning to drive a car with a manual transmission. It took a lot of practice, but by the fourth week he was moving the arm back and forth and sideways.