A “near-natural” prosthetic arm, that took eight years to develop and test, has been approved for mass production by the US Food and Drug Administration. The DEKA Arm System has been affectionately dubbed “The Luke,” after Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker who received a robotic replacement for the hand he lost in a fight with Darth Vader in the 1980 film “The Empire Strikes Back.” One of the... 

Tim Hemmes operates the mechanical prosthetic arm During an experimental study at the University of Pittsburgh a paralyzed man managed to touch his partner’s hand using a new mind-controlled robotic arm. “It wasn’t my arm but it was my brain, my thoughts. I was moving something,” said Tim Hemmes of Pennsylvania. “I don’t have one single word to give you what I felt at that moment....