 |
Rat Brain Robot Gets Upgrades
The rat brain robot created by University of Reading researchers has been getting some cool upgrades.
Take a look at the following video, enjoy the music, and watch rat neurons tell a little floor robot what to do.
(Living robot has biological brain)
Note the cool additional sensors and LED light displays. Also, they've been trying out different brains.
According to Kevin Warwick, one of the researchers, "It's quite funny - you get differences between the brains. This one is a bit boisterous and active, while we know another is not going to do what we want it to." Warwick later speculates that much of the difference between rat and human brains lies in the number of neurons and not the neurons themselves. Picking on that particular statement, since I think it's a pretty bold claim, you have to wonder about animals like whales and elephants who have one to two times the number of neurons we do. If he's right and it's the number of neurons that makes the difference, we are literally killing sentient beings. Of course, to the people who are killing blue whales and elephants, that doesn't matter one bit.
In case you hadn't read any of the previous articles, here's a quick summary of how it works (see Living robot has biological brain for more):
The robot has an actual, living brain consisting of rat neurons. The cells are removed from rat fetuses and then disentangled from each other with an enzyme bath. Finally, the cells are spread over a multi-electrode array (MEA) bathed in a nutrient-rich medium. Impulses from its robotic part are received; the neurons organize themselves and fire electrical signals back.
Fans of Cordwainer Smith continue to be amazed that the Laminated Mouse Brain Computer from his 1962 classic Think Blue, Count Two is coming true. And don't forget the 'head cheese' cultured brains from Peter Watts' 1999 novel Starfish.
Oh and I should also mention Robert Heinlein; in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, he mentions the idea that computers of massive capacity could be created by combining a number of Cyborgs with human brains.
Thanks to Armisius for sending in the tip.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/16/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 8 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Robots Help People Get Dressed, As Predicted In 1931
Yes, people of the future, robots will dress you.
Robot Snake Flies, Fights Fires
Just a prototype, but shows real promise.
IPAL Chinese Robot Babysitter
'But Nanny is different...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.
DIY Autonomous Robot Detects Trash
'The search-bug detached itself and rolled forward.' - Philip K. Dick
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Jaguar I-Pace Audible Vehicle Alert System For EVs
'Of course not a vehicle moved by means of internal explosions of a derivative of rock oil...'
Autonomous 'Fiberbots' Weave Large Structures
'It extrudes material like a spider.'
Birds Aren't Real - Wake Up, California! (With Bird Watching Guide)
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
Self-Healing Material Pulls Carbon Out Of The Air
'... could seal the punctures.'
IRL Glasses Block Screens, Limit Vision To Real Life
'If you couldn't see the ads, how would you know what was fashionable?'
Testing The Single-Person Spacecraft
'...the lower part of the suit was simply a rigid cylinder.'
Shapeshifting Materials Transform By Light
'Its lines wavered, flowed, and then painfully reformed.'
Fully Automated Farm Iron Ox Hydroponics
'Had these machines in some incredible fashion been provided with brains?'
BrainNet Social Network Of Brains
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE what we wanted and she took care of it'
Phil Nuyttnn's City Under The Sea
'Under the lower roof there was no water, but a clear and luminous atmosphere...'
IONITY Opens First 10 Fast-Charging Stations
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'
Superstrong Multilayer Metal-Graphene Composite Material
Negligible increase in weight increased material strength by hundreds of times.
Deepfakes Imperil Democracy (George Orwell, Right Again)
'All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.'
String Art Courtesy Of Robot Artist
The number of different ways to span a thread between a larger number of hooks is astronomical.
Still Wondering If You'd Work For A Robot Boss?
'This is all coming to you courtesy of the simstim unit wired into your deck, of course.'
World's First Autonomous Tram In Germany
What's it like for autonomous trams when they're turned off at night?
