The busy brains at the Bristol Robotics Lab have released their latest rodent-inspired robot - the SCRATCHbot rat designed to help us examine the secret workings of the human brain. Able to find objects using it's tiny mechanical whiskers, the SCRATCHbot utilises a superior sense of touch to navigate its way around, presumably without heading straight for your Christmas macadamias. Potential uses for this innovative technology include remote rescue operations in dusty or smoky environments, deep sea exploration and fetching things from the icky space underneath the bed.
This raises all sorts of philosophical quandraries for me, such as now that we've designed a better rat, who's gonna design a better rat-trap?
Via Science Daily
