Engineers from the Italian Institute of Technology and Italy’s National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL) have unveiled a prosthetic hand that they claim “gives the patient approximately 90% functionality of a natural hand.” The Hannes was designed to lower the price of advanced powered prostheses, while having a long battery life, a strong grip, and manipulation of individual fingers.

Researchers at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia tested a new version of the WALK-MAN humanoid robot for supporting emergency response teams in fires. The robot is able to locate the fire and walk toward it, and then activate an extinguisher. During the operation, it collects images and transmits them back to emergency teams, who can evaluate the situation and guide the robot remotely. The new WALK-MAN design has a lighter upper body and new ha...

Researchers from the IIT in Lecce, Italy, and the Harvard Medical School in Boston, have developed a new optical microprobe able to control brain electrical activity by projecting light on wide volumes or selected portions of the central nervous system in an very controlled fashion. The study was published on Nature Neuroscience and it represents a first step toward low invasiveness devices for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological and psyc...