

Breakthrough bionic hand restores amputee’s sense of touch - hack4supper
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/geekquinox/breakthrough-bionic-hand-restores-amputee-sense-touch-211553303.html

======
Shinkei
The diversity of sensors in the skin is impressive--it's not all sensed by a
generic nerve. There are specialized mechanisms for vibration, heat, pressure
and even pain. Here's a great summary with diagrams:

[http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/receptor.html](http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/receptor.html)

------
onion2k
I really hope the surgeon said "I am your father!" after the procedure. :)

~~~
bgramer
Nooooooooooo!

------
namuol
We're going to spend a century trying to hack our bodies until we realize we
can just abandon them and stop worrying all the time.

~~~
czottmann
I hope it doesn't take a century, really.

------
frahs
I believe we've had technology similar to this for a long time, is there
anything new with this in particular?

I believe the biggest problem is the formation of scar tissue around the
implanted electrodes. This reduces the strength of the electrical signals over
time, and eventually the electrodes need to be adjusted.

~~~
scribu
There have been prosthetic arms that can be controlled by thought alone for a
while. I think the new part is getting real-time feedback from the arms back
to the brain.

------
af3
EPFL is cool... one day I will move there too :)

