He started wearing his first prosthesis, or artificial arm, when he was 3 months old. Now at age 37, Meyer wears the futuristic i-limb ? a high-tech bionic arm that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Aesthetics aside, the i-limb is highly functional. It's a myoelectric prosthesis, which uses electrical signals from the muscles inside the residual limb to control the prosthesis. 

Two electrodes lay on the bare skin of the residual limb of his lower left arm. "If you flex muscles in your arm, that will change the electrical pattern on the surface of the arm and these patterns are picked up by the electrodes that lie in the prosthesis," Meyer told Business Insider.

A microcontroller then amplifies the signal and the i-limb responds. If he flexes his upper arm muscles one way, the i-limb opens; another way, it closes.

In his professional life, Meyer is a professor of psychology at the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany, where his research focuses on diversity.