http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/~dbailey/pressrelease.html
Kind of old so sorry if its been posted before. (search didn't show it, or I didn't search hard enough)
Anyway as you may have guessed some scientists in Texas (where else?) have grown a 'brain'.
The Brain, constructed from dog neurons, was wierd up to quake 3 arena where they set it against a bot. Its progress was charted in video form (available from the link) and shows the 'brain' develop to from simply jumping around randomly to collision detecting and avoidance and engaging in combat.
Ok so while playing a game may not seem that important this does show that an organic 'brain' can be produced and then display learning abilities which has clear importance in robotics (and possibly computing). I must say that the development (which happened in just 9 days) is phenomenal. Granted the combat was against super easy bot, but still considering it is a mass of neurons in a petri dish controling the game then it becomes a lot more impressive. I'm not too sure I want my PC developing emotions on me but this could evenyually power a new bread of robot which will learn and develop over time (gotta keep some sort of control don't want the going all matrix / terminator on us).


