| Clipped from: Robot scientist makes discoveries without human help - tech - 02 April 2009 - New Scientist |
Robot scientist makes discoveries without human help
A robot scientist that can generate its own hypotheses and run experiments to test them has made its first real scientific discoveriesDubbed Adam, the robot is the handiwork of researchers at Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge in the UK. All by itself it discovered new functions for a number of genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka brewer's yeast.
| Clipped from: Robo-scientist makes gene discovery--on its own | Crave - CNET |
Robo-scientist makes gene discovery--on its own
Adam (shown in background) may not look like its two colleagues in the white coats, but it's starting to act like them.
| Clipped from: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Robo-scientist's first findings |
Robo-scientist's first findings
Robotic planning
Adam can carry out up to 1,000 experiments each day, and was designed to investigate the function of genes in yeast cells - it has worked out the role of 12 of these genes.
Biologists use the yeast cells to investigate biological systems because they are simple and easy to study.
"When you sequence the yeast genome - the 6,000 different genes contained in yeast - you know what all the component parts are, but you don't know what they do," explained Professor King.
The robot was able to work out the role of the genes by observing yeast cells as they grew.
| Clipped from: Robot Makes Scientific Discovery All by Itself | Wired Science from Wired.com |
Robot Makes Scientific Discovery All by Itself
[...] with advances in artificial intelligence, it's conceivable that the role of robots would, in the more distant future, creep deeper into the human realm, progressing from lab technician to lab head. Robots may even be capable of performing supposed acts of genius, such as Einstein's conception of special relativity."There isn't any intrinsic reason why that wouldn't happen," says King. "I think there's a continuum between the really basic types of science that you'd get from Adam, and the things I can do, and then Einstein-type science. A computer can make beautiful chess moves, but it's not doing anything special. It's just doing more of the same thing. In my view that's what's going to happen in science."
| Clipped from: The Department of Computer Science at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth :: |
Computational Biology Group and Wolfson Bioinformatics Unit
Our aim is to do innovative research in both computer science and biological science by developing computing and artificial intelligence techniques for application to important biological problems. An essential component in this multidisciplinary field is our close collaboration with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, and with other key research groups.
Projects
...Robot Scientist
...
| Clipped from: The Robot Scientist |
The Robot Scientists are multidisciplinary research projects involving expertise from Computer Science and Microbiology, and are projects of the Computational Biology research group at the Aberystwyth University. We currently have two Robot Scientists, Adam (investigating yeast functional genomics) and Eve (investigating drug screening).
Related:
Robot scientist makes discoveries without human help - tech - 02 April 2009 - New Scientist
Robot scientist makes discoveries without human help - video 18393346001 - tech - 02 April 2009 - New Scientist
Robo-scientist makes gene discovery--on its own | Crave - CNET
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Robo-scientist's first findings
Robot Makes Scientific Discovery All by Itself | Wired Science from Wired.com
Robot scientist 'Adam' solves genetic problems - Times Online
Robot scientists can think for themselves | Global Industries | Health & Drugs | Reuters
Robot Scientist Becomes First Machine To Discover New Scientific Knowledge
The Department of Computer Science at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth ::
The Robot Scientist
The Automation of Science -- King et al. 324 (5923): 85 -- Science
