The high number of joints and sensitivity of the hand are among the features that mark us out as humans and define the way we both think and act. This is the reasons why it is so exciting and challenging to try and reproduce the hand mechanisms through robotics. Across the centuries there have been a number of attempts to artificially recreate the hand's dynamics, sometimes with striking results, as in the case of Giuliano Vanghetti's prostheses. The most recent stage of this process is represented by the different components of NEBIAS, one of the most advanced projects of upper limb neuro-prosthesis in the world, thanks to its ability to convey "perceptions" from the artificial fingers to the nervous system. Still, more research is needed, since for every goal we achieve new questions arise, both from the scientific and the ethical points of view.
