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Neuroscience is one of the few areas of biology in which robots have yet to make a big impact. Researchers at MIT and Georgia Tech have developed a way to automate the process of finding and recording information from neurons in the living brain. The researchers have shown that a Robotic arm guided by a cell-detecting computer algorithm can identify and record from neurons in the living mouse brain with better accuracy and speed than a human experimenter.

The new automated process eliminates the need for months of training and provides long-sought information about living cells' activities. Using this technique, scientists could classify the thousands of different types of cells in the brain, map how they connect to each other, and figure out how diseased cells differ from normal cells. ...Full article

Iranian researchers successfully measured low concentrations of the toxic and harmful cyanide ion in aqueous environments by using nanotechnology. "Synthetic Silver nanoparticles were used in the research as the colorimetric sensor in order to measure low concentrations of cyanide ion in aqueous environments," Salahoddin Hajizadeh, MSc in analytical chemistry from Urmia University, told the INIC. ...Full article

A Canadian-built Robotic handyman fixed to the International Space Station has demonstrated that it can perform ultra precise tasks in space. The robot, called Dextre, showed off its skills on a mock satellite attached to the International Space Station. The mock satellite, designed and built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, is about the size of a washing machine and has various caps, nozzles and valves like those found on satellites. The robotic demonstration is part of the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), a collaboration between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, designed to demonstrate the ability of robots to refuel and service existing satellites in space. ...Full article

In Technology there is a strong desire to shrink things. Consider the sheer amount of news these days surrounding nanotechnology: it is arguably one of the fastest growing sectors in technology. Recent news out of two universities on potentially groundbreaking work on single-atom transistors should not be that surprising, then. Scientists have created a transistor the size of a single atom, opening the way for the next generation of nanotechnology: a quantum computer that might one day function in a nanoscale world and would be significantly smaller and quicker than today's silicon-based machines. Until now, single-atom transistors were created on a hit-or-miss basis....Full article

The claim that robots could, one day, take over the world has never really made me nervous. Most of them still need humans to guide them - hard to be dominant when you're so reliant, right? That is, until now. Researchers from MIT's Computer Science and artificial intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are developing a system that would allow robots to navigate through constantly changing environments with virtually no input from humans. Scary? Just a bit. ...Full article

With the advances in technology, it was only a matter of time before robotic surgery became a popular concept in the world today. Robotic surgery, or computer-assisted surgery, involves the use of Robotic systems to help in surgical procedures. Many robotically-assisted surgeries have been developed in order to get past the limitations of minimally invasive surgery and also enhance the capabilities of the surgeons who are performing the open surgery. ...Full article