"By harnessing a new sphere of science called 'lovotics', Hooman Samani, an artificial intelligence researcher at the Social Robotics Lab at the National University of Singapore, believes it is possible to engineer love between humans and robots. Samani's robots have artificial psychological and biological systems that mimic the human brain and endocrine systems, and use movements, sounds, and lights to show their mood and level of affection for a human."

"Some technologies are so cool they make you do a double take. Case in point: robots being controlled by rat brains. Kevin Warwick, once a cyborg and still a researcher in cybernetics at the University of Reading, has been working on creating neural networks that can control machines. He and his team have taken the brain cells from rats, cultured them, and used them as the guidance control circuit for simple wheeled robots. Electrical impulses from the bot enter the batch of neurons, and responses from the cells are turned into commands for the device.

And I, for one, welcome our new Robot Tree Climbing Snake overlords.. OMG!

"Carnegie Mellon has taught its robotic snake to climb trees, though one hopes it won’t start offering your spouse apples. “Uncle Sam” (presumably named for its red, white, and blue markings) is a snake robot built from modular pieces." | more

When Discovery's six astronauts take the final space shuttle ride to orbit in September, there'll be one more rider sitting in the back of the bus: Robonaut 2, the semi-humanoid robot created by NASA and GM.