The Buzz: Robots, Robots, Robots

While the robotic title character in WALL-E inhabited an Earth of the future, robots are here now, in our labs, factories, and even art galleries. At Aberystwyth University in Wales, a robot named Adam is designing and carrying out genetic tests on yeast, modifying the experiments on its own as it records and processes data. At the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, robots methodically analyze frozen slices of the brain to create a genetic map of the entire organ. And in art galleries across Europe and North America, artist Wim Delvoye's "Cloaca" machines mimic natural human waste disposal. Will robots be designing other robots next?

More like this

In a laboratory at Aberystwyth University, Wales, a scientist called Adam is doing some experiments. He is trying to find the genes responsible for producing some important enzymes in yeast, and he is going about it in a very familiar way. Based on existing knowledge, Adam is coming up with new…
What you see here is a sample of artificially produced feces. More specifically, it's material produced from an artistic feat of engineering. The creation of a machine that can step for step mimic the digestive process. In other words: you put food in one end... and well, you get sh*t coming…
With their latest film WALL-E, Pixar Studios have struck cinematic gold again, with a protagonist who may be the cutest thing to have ever been committed to celluloid. Despite being a blocky chunk of computer-generated metal, it's amazing how real, emotive and characterful WALL-E can be. In fact,…
The Robby in the title refers to Robby the Robot in the 1956 movie, Forbidden Planet, and what follows was a tag line in an ad for Grant's whiskey: "While you're up, get me a Grant's." That's in case you've forgotten or never knew. I'm still working on the grant, doing things it feels like a robot…