How cutting-edge materials science is transforming lives with prosthetic limbs, bones and joints, as well as reinventing dentistry and orthodontics.

Celebrating British technological innovation was a core project for the Central Office of Information from its creation in 1947. This video in the COI's science series Perspective relays some of the most astounding recent advances in materials science, exploring how 'when bodies are broken, technology can come to our aid'.

The video follows a handful of people who have all suffered lifechanging injuries, but who are now among the first to benefit from new technology in prosthetics. Judy lost a leg in a motorcycle accident 16 years ago, but now enjoys success on the golf course thanks to a new carbon-fibre leg to match her carbon-fibre clubs. Wayne lost his left leg above the knee, but is cycling again just six months after getting a new hydraulic-assisted artificial leg. Meanwhile, former England rugby union international Peter Warfield is now undergoing his second hip replacement. His first, titanium hip was cemented to the bone, but eventually came away; his new hip is coated with calcium hydroxyapatite - which is found naturally in bone, and so 'knits' with the existing bone. Finally, there's young Sîan, 'helped to smile by computer', after an operation to reset her jaw using metal implants.

Not surprisingly, the commentary takes an upbeat view of these new developments. 'New techniques', we're told, 'promise a brighter, even more active future for them and thousands of others around the world.' What it doesn't raise is the issue of costs - and, crucially, how far such cutting-edge treatments can be made available to anyone who might benefit from them through constrained NHS budgets.

Though it's grounded in science fact, the video can't resist a bit of sci-fi speculation, contemplating a future of 'bionic people'. 'The day may dawn,' it concludes, when 'we will be as much the product of technology as we are of the genes that made us.'

Describes the advances in prostheses from a century ago, when a wooden leg, a hook, or a glass eye were all that were commonly available. The greater sophistication of today's prostheses is illustrated, including footage of a multi-jointed false limb which follows the instructions of a computer, which in turn take its instructions from the body muscles of a disabled person. Shows how computer models, new materials and electronics are being used to build bionic body parts that mimic nature.