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About this blog
This blog explores the fields that embrace the development of an ecology of soft and sentient machines that will help and assist humans in the broadest possible sense to support and sustain our welfare.
You will find entries on biology, robotics, artificial intelligence, ecology, science-fiction, neuroscience... and many more that converge around questions like: what does it take to make our assisting machines sentient?
The blog is written by the Coordination Action initiative of the Future Emerging Technologies (FET) programme of the EU, named "Robot Companions for Citizens". Click here for more information on that initiative.
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Blogroll
Category Archives: Biology
This Bot Doesn’t Bite…
Check out this robot inspired by fleas! Scientists at Seoul National University (SNU) have recently created a robot inspired by tiny blood-sucking bugs: fleas! Pesky as these little insects may be, they’ve got an incredible physical ability that not even an … Continue reading
Robots That Smell
Biomimetic Robot from Vicky Vouloutsi on Vimeo. As humans, we may take our sense of smell for granted but for many of the other members of the animal kingdom, either land-roaming or water-dwelling, a keen sense of smell serves as … Continue reading
Posted in Biology, Robots and Research, Robots and the Environment
Tagged NEUROChem, olfaction, Robot Companions, Robots that smell, silk moths
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Infrared Sensors Inspired by Beetles
The Jewel beetle may be able to detect forest fires up to 80km away… could they help humans do the same? Judging by their glamorous iridescent colouring, you could never tell that a Jewel beetle’s preferred hang out is among … Continue reading
Magnificent Maneuvers
Robots designed to move like cockroaches and geckos It’s suspected that the earliest forms of cockroaches were present over 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period while our modern roach’s history dates back to the more recent Cretaceous period, … Continue reading
Posted in Biology, Robots and Research
Tagged Biomimicry, Cockroach, DASH, gecko, Living Machines 2012, Robert Full, Robot Companions, Ron Fearing, UC Berkeley
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Robotic Therapy Gets Paralysed Rats Walking and Running
These rats are back in action! Grégoire Courtine and his team at The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have been using a robotic harness and electro-chemical stimulation to get rats with damaged spinal cords up and running again.
Fishing for New Ways to Monitor Water Pollution?
The SHOAL project develops robotic fish to help keep our waters clean! SHOAL is a European research project that aims to produce a network of robotic fish to monitor pollution in aquatic environments.The project is being lead by BMT Group … Continue reading
The Flywalk
A new way to get meaningful info from minute creatures Although not known for its beauty or its brains, the common fruit fly has won the devotion of scientists around the world thanks to its many traits that make it … Continue reading
Posted in Biology
Tagged Drosophila melanogaster, Fruit fly, Paul Verschure, SPECS, The Flywalk, Vinegar fly, Zenon Mathews
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Robots with Green Thumbs
Could blending living and artificial systems help make agriculture more eco-friendly? What started out as an undergraduate summer project at the Distributed Robotics Lab (DRL), part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, has now turned into … Continue reading
Posted in Biology, Robots and Research, Robots and Society
Tagged Artificial and Living Systems, CSAIL, DRL, MIT, Robot Companions, Robotic Garden
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Robots Get Cultural
Using machines to study social behaviour How does culture emerge in human societies and those of other social animals? To tackle this question, a study funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) lead by the University … Continue reading
Posted in Biology, Robots and Research, Robots and Society
Tagged Emergence of culture, EPSRC, Human Culture, Leeds Metropolitan University, Robot Companions, Robot Culture, University of Abertay Dundee, UNiversity of Bristol, University of Exeter, University of Manchester, University of Warwick
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