Month: October 2023

Scientists appear to have developed a hand prosthetic that provides much more control and comfort than those available today. In new research this week, they’ve detailed the case of a Swedish woman who has successfully worn the advanced bionic limb for years with no major issues, while experiencing significantly less pain than before.

The woman, identified as Karin, suffered a farming injury that took much of her right arm below the elbow over 20 years ago. Like many amputees, Karin went on to develop phantom limb pain, which required her to take high doses of medication to manage. She also benefited little from conventional prosthetics, finding them too unwieldy to use for daily life. But several years ago, Karin became one of the first patients enrolled in the DeTOP project, an expansive research study funded by the European Union and involving dozens of scientists across Europe that’s looking to develop the next generation of bionic limbs.

Karin’s prosthesis was created by the Italian company Presilia and is nicknamed Mia Hand. It’s outfitted with state-of-art technology, including AI. And to further improve its functionality, her surgeons performed osseointegration during the attachment procedure, a process that directly fuses bone to the implant, ideally creating a stronger mechanical connection. They also implanted electrodes in her arm muscles and nerves, as well as rewired some of her nerves in the remaining part of the arm. The result is a robotic limb that’s directly connected to Karin’s neuromusculoskeletal system.

Much like a real flesh-and-blood hand, it’s controlled by Karin’s nervous system and provides sensory feedback. Her new hand can purportedly perform around 80% of the typical daily tasks that a regular limb would be able to do. And it’s substantially reduced her phantom limb pain and the need for medication. The team’s findings on Mia Hand’s initial success are published in the journal Science Robotics.

“Karin was the first person with below-elbow amputation who received this new concept of a highly integrated bionic hand that can be used independently and reliably in daily life,” said lead study author Max Ortiz-Catalan, head of neural prosthetics research at the Bionics Institute in Australia, in a statement from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, one of the many other universities involved in the project.

He added: ”The fact that she has been able to use her prosthesis comfortably and effectively in daily activities for years is a promising testament to the potential life-changing capabilities of this novel technology for individuals facing limb loss.”

Karin is one of three patients enrolled in the DeTOP project. And while it may take time for the research on these patients to reach completion, the hope is that these prosthetics can eventually become the new standard for upper limb amputees. For Karin, it’s already been a tremendous gift.

“For me, this research has meant a lot, as it has given me a better life,” she said in the university release.

NASA’s yellow robotic bee is back at its space hive.

The yellow Astrobee free-flying robot, part of a set of three, is safely working on the International Space Station (ISS) after a flight to and from Earth for repairs.

“After initial checks, Honey was able to independently disengage from its docking station, maneuver through the space station … and redock successfully without crew supervision,” agency officials wrote in an Oct. 6 update, referring to activities completed a few weeks before.

Related: Meet the Astrobees! These tiny, cube-shaped robots have arrived in space

Honey and robo-companions Bumble (colored in blue) and Queen (in green) are cube-shaped robots designed to take some maintenance load off of astronauts, through activities like documenting experiments or taking inventory, agency officials said in 2016.

“In addition, the system serves as a research platform that can be outfitted and programmed to carry out experiments in microgravity — helping us to learn more about how robotics can benefit astronauts in space,” NASA officials wrote at the time.

The Astrobee fleet, managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center, first arrived on the ISS in 2019 aboard two separate cargo ship deliveries. It has engaged astronauts, researchers and students with mid-air maneuvers and autonomous flight. 

Honey returned to Earth for a two-year pit stop, however, on the SpaceX CRS-23 spacecraft in September 2021, according to NASA, before its relaunch to space aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus ship in August 2023. 

Re-activation of Honey was supervised by NASA’s Woody Hoburg, a SpaceX Crew-6 astronaut who returned to Earth with the rest of his crew on Sept. 4, 2023. It wasn’t the first time Hoburg played with the hardware; he also worked with Astrobees during a ZeroRobotics competition hosted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this summer, he said in an Aug. 3 post on X (formerly Twitter).

The cube-shaped robot set includes software and a docking system for recharging. They move through the space station using electric fans, relying on cameras and sensors for navigation. A perching arm on each robot lets them grasp on to handrails around the ISS to grab things, or to catch a brief rest.

As of April 2022, Astrobees had accomplished 750 hours and 100 activities of research on the ISS, according to NASA officials. They are also being tested for future ideas: For example, they once found an anomaly during a simulated issue in space.

Aside from space station research, Astrobees are used by students and guest scientists. “Since the robots are modular and can be upgraded, the system gives researchers and scientists diverse capabilities for performing a wide range of experiments inside the station,” NASA officials wrote in 2016.

Astrobee isn’t the first flying robot on the ISS. A previous generation of small freeflyers were called SPHERES, short for Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellite. NASA documentation and imagery suggests the experiment concluded in 2019, but Astrobee continues to build on the “lessons learned” from the two decades of research using SPHERES.

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