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| Wired magazine editors weigh in with their observations and musings on the latest science news in the Wired Science blog, including space, biology, disease, drugs and alcohol, geology, math, neuroscience, physics, religion, and television. ... |
Thursday, May 08, 2008 --- 8 days ago http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/making-a-better.html
| What makes a hand so versatile? Fingers come to mind first -- but as designers of robot arms have learned, said neurobotics pioneer Yoky Matsuoka, the hand is just as much about the palm. Specifically, the palm's flexibility -- a quality I'd never even considered until she mentioned it and I tried to use my hand while keeping my palm stiff.Inflexible palms were a downfall of early attempts at mechanically
mimicking our hands, said Matsuoka during her talk at the New Yorker
Stories From the Near Future conference. She recently designed the
Anatomically Correct Testbed Robotic Hand, pictured above -- as close
in form and function to a real hand as scientists have yet come.
While she talked, I thought of the Cheetah legs used by would-be
Olympian Oscar Pistorius. Unlike Matsuoka's hand, these seem less like
an attempted duplication and more like an intended improvement on
nature's original design. Is that the case? I'm going to try and ask Matsuoka
-- but in the meantime, if any WiSci readers know, comment away. See Also: Blade Runner Amputee Sprinter Denied Olympic Entry Measuring the Athletic (Dis)advantages of Artificial Limbs The World's Most Powerful Ankle Any Sufficiently Advanced Neurotechnology Is Indistinguishable ... 23 and Me: Certain About Uncertainty Climate Scientists Put Their Money Where Their Models Are Could Green Mayor Win Golden State Governorship? WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter and Del.icio.us feeds; Wired S ... |
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Anytime
