Rise of the Rats

Meet Gordon, probably the world's first robot controlled exclusively by living brain tissue.

Stitched together from cultured rat neurons, Gordon's primitive grey matter was designed at the University of Reading by scientists who unveiled the neuron-powered machine on Wednesday.

Their groundbreaking experiments explore the vanishing boundary between natural and artificial intelligence, and could shed light on the fundamental building blocks of memory and learning, one of the lead researchers told AFP.

Read all about the Frankenrobot HERE .

I don't mean to be the joy-kill here—I'm all for pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence and robotics... but should we really be encouraging the rats? Isn't there a slightly less-offensive species we could empower through machines?