Yoky Matsuoka, the director of the Neurobotics Laboratory at the University of Washington, and one of the honorees in our most recent class of the Brilliant Ten, took some time to chat with Talking Robots about her work in particular, and the future of robotics in general. One of Matsuoka's many projects involves building an anatomically-correct mechanical hand—see the video above of the finger in action—and she also has big ideas about brain-machine interfaces, tele-manipulation and robots in the home.

After 20 years of development, problems with funding, lawsuits, and an arduous 25-mile journey to cart its key parts uphill, the $102 million Large Binocular Telescope is finally complete. The telescope, an internationally-run observatory that points skyward from a mountaintop in southern Arizona, has already captured some beautiful images, including the spiral galaxy pictured to the left, which is 102 million light years away from Earth.