Detachable Robot Hand Crawls, Climbs And Grips Multiple Objects At Once

Forget Thing T. Thing from The Addams Family (yes, that's the full name); modern science has officially brought us a detachable robot hand that can actually skitter across the floor, grab you a beer, and creep the heck out of your guests.

In an engineering development that straddles the line between revolutionary and nightmare fuel, researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and MIT have unveiled a robotic hand capable of detaching itself from its arm to complete tasks solo. This isn't just a gimmick for a haunted house; it's a major leap in modular robotics. The contraption, which looks like a standard prosthetic hand until it decides to walk away, uses its own fingers as legs to scuttle across surfaces, reaching tight spots where the larger robotic arm simply cannot fit.

According to the study, the hand operates through a marriage of hand anatomy ...