Oh, the Joy Digging and Information Landslides

So. Today was my originally hoped-for date to finish the bulk of my research by.

Actual outcome: not so much. As it turns out, what I'd hoped was my narrowed topic was actually still too broad, and resulted in a lot of overflow of possible research avenues and informational black holes from which there would likely be no return (*cue danger music*). Long story short... back to the drawing board.

For today's post though, here's what I can safely say I've got so far:

In the area of scholarly sources, I haven't yet pinned down the sources I'll be drawing from. But what I'm hoping for is a mix of published theoretical research in the area of android development projects (to get a feel for what's theoretically possible in the area of blending human characteristics, even independent thoughts and emotions and personalities, with a mechanized body), and published experiment/prototype results in the area of mechanized/artificially engineered human limb and organ transplants (to gauge the potential progress from what's currently being achieved to what's theorized as achievable).

For popular sources, so far I have a variety of website articles and youtube videos I'm considering using in some way, some of the most promising of which are found at the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hGXnIu_A7yg (a video on the human-interfacing bionic man named Rex)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1G1evlXfKE&list=PL6131F72B3C33A8A9 (a video on the first artificial body part transplant, performed two years ago)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20084885-76/researchers-build-dna-neural-network-that-thinks/ (an article about artificially built neural network)
http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=19690 (a two-year old article about the US military's plans for bionic medical implants in soldiers, designed to combat infections and resist bio/chemical warfare)
http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=21602 (article discussing the growing possibility of engineered/bionic "upgrades" becoming fashionable, regardless of the lack of actual need for them)

Within my popular sources, I'm hoping especially to highlight where bionics currently stand in the public eye, both in popularity as well as in actual use. What I think I'll end up doing (and writing up, for my revised research plan) is cutting down sci-fi comparisons to the briefest of references in order to dedicate more time in the podcast to exploring current and future realities.