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Surprisingly efficient snail brains could help make robots smarter
How snails think about eating could inform future robot decision-making designs. University of Sussex researchers have discovered that the creatures use just two brain cells for complex decisions: one cell told the snail if it was hungry, while another told it if food was near. Scientists attached electrodes to the snails' brains to measure activity -- which hopefully looked adorable. The takeaway is that it could help design efficient robot brains using the least possible number of components yet still capable of performing complex tasks. Lead researcher Professor George Kemenes added that it: "also shows how this system helps to manage how much energy they use once they have made a decision."
UK researchers give robot a "biological brain"
It looks like a group of researchers from the University of Reading are making a solid run at the title of mad scientists of the year (in the best sense, of course), with them now boasting that they've developed a robot that's controlled by a "biological brain." That's not quite the sci-fi sight you may be imagining, however (though it's close), with it instead made up of some 300,000 neurons taken from the neural cortex of a rat fetus, which are contained in multi electrode array that packs 60 electrodes to pick up the signals generated by the cells and, in turn, control the robot. According to the researchers, they are particularly interested in using the robot to study how memories are formed in the brain, and how the brain stores specific data, which they hope will lead to a better understanding of Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, stokes, and other brain injuries. [Via Emerging Tech, New Scientist]
