The world's first Frankenstein-like creature has finally been created. This week's New Scientist (out today) reports that scientists at the University of Reading have created a so called "animat", a robot with the actual brains of rats. Before I explain how it works, I would like to refer to the actually article, as this will prevent me from making mistakes. The story is great though. What the scientists have created is a robot that can learn! If the robot 'sees' a wall, the brain will tell the 'body' to stop or even go back, because the brain 'knows' that it cannot go through walls. A video on how this looks like is available here.
I think this is by far one of the most interesting scientific breakthroughs in quite a while. This is the first time that scientist can study in detail how a brain works. The information they might gather can lead to a cure of illnesses such as Alzheimer's.
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