ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Scientists Build Robot That Forms And Tests Scientific Hypotheses All By Itself
British researchers at Aberystwyth University developed a $1 million prototype robot scientist, named Adam, that can reason, formulate a scientific hypothesis, devised experiments to test the hypothesis and then tweaked the hypothesis based on the results with minimal intellectual input from humans, reports DailyTech:
To date, Adam has completed research into yeast metabolism, and has the ability to understand the results and plan what to do with the results.
Specifically, Adam was equipped with a yeast metabolism model and a gene and protein database, with human researchers only becoming involved when it was necessary to replace necessary solutions and remove waste.
Lead researcher Ross King, a computational biologist, told Reuters: “When we first sent robots to Mars, they really dreamed of the robots doing their own experiments on mars. After 40 or 50 years, we've now got the capability to do that.” But USA Today describes more practical applications right here on Earth: Using robots instead of lab techs could exponentially increase the rate of scientific progress – the robot can start more than 1,000 biology experiments a day over a five-day period, says King, adding: "Scientists should be using their brains rather than their hands."
King wanted to list Adam as a co-author on the paper reporting the team’s groundbreaking findings on yeast genetics, “but they wouldn't go for that."
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