A Tiny Robotic Hand - a new tool in microsurgery?

Early this winter in a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), laboratory, a mechanical hand less than one millimeter wide deftly plucked ba single fish egg from a gooey underwater clutch, demonstrating a new technology that could one day make it into surgeons' tool kits.

"It is the world's smallest robotic hand, and [it] could be used to perform microsurgery," says Chang-Jin Kim, the lead researcher at UCLA, who says the device is safe for biological applications. Since it runs on gas pressure instead of electricity, it can be used in both dry and wet environments.