{"id":206,"date":"2009-04-03T09:42:49","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T14:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/?p=206"},"modified":"2020-08-17T17:58:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T17:58:42","slug":"robot-independently-discovers-scientific-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/2009\/04\/03\/robot-independently-discovers-scientific-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Robot Independently Discovers Scientific Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

From ASEE First BELL<\/a><\/strong> April 3, 2009<\/p>\n

BBC News<\/a> (4\/3, Gill) reports that researchers at Aberystwyth University in
\nWales have developed “a robot that performs hundreds of repetitive experiments,”
\nand “is the first machine to have independently ‘discovered new scientific
\nknowledge.'” The robot, named Adam, “can carry out up to 1,000 experiments each
\nday, and was designed to investigate the function of genes in yeast cells.”
\nRoss King, a professor in the university’s department of computer science and
\nhead of the research team, said “he envisaged a future when human scientists’
\ntime would be ‘freed up to do more advanced experiments'” while “robotic
\ncolleagues…could carry out the more mundane and time-consuming
\ntasks.”<\/p>\n

Wired<\/a> (4\/2, Buchen) Science blog reported that the researchers “designed ‘Adam’ to
\ncarry out the entire scientific process on its own: formulating hypotheses,
\ndesigning and running experiments, analyzing data, and deciding which
\nexperiments to run next.” This makes it “the first automated system to complete
\nthe cycle from hypothesis, to experiment, to reformulated hypothesis without
\nhuman intervention.” The robotic system’s “proving ground…has been the genome
\nof baker’s yeast,” which “is one of the best understood organisms, but 10 to 15
\npercent of its roughly 6,000 genes have unknown functions.” Adam was designed
\nto find “gaps in the metabolism model, specifically orphan enzymes,” find
\n“similar enzymes in other organisms,” and hypothesize which “genes in the yeast
\ngenome may code for the orphan enzyme.” Over the course of its research, “Adam
\nhad uncovered three genes that together coded for an orphan
\nenzyme.”<\/p>\n

New Scientist<\/a> (4\/3, Kleiner) reports, “The team is now working on a new
\nrobot, called Eve, which will search for new drugs.” According to Stanford
\nartificial intelligence researcher Will Bridewell, “Adam is operating only at
\nthe level of a graduate student. Still, the robot is moving closer to the goal
\nof an artificially intelligent machine that can cooperate with other scientists
\nand write up their results in natural language, he says.” In a similar vein,
\n“researchers at Cornell University…have developed software that can observe
\nphysical systems and independently identify the laws that underlay
\nthem.”<\/p>\n

Scientific
\nAmerican<\/a> (4\/3, Greenemeier) reports that the researchers “are hoping
\nthat their next automated lab, Eve, will help scientist search for new drugs to
\ncombat diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis.” King noted that, “instead
\nof testing compounds randomly…Eve tries to determine the best compounds to
\nstudy.” The UK’s Times<\/a> (4\/3), National Geographic<\/a> (4\/2, Ravilious), the UK’s
\nPress Association<\/a> (4\/3), Reuters<\/a>(4\/3, Hirschler), and CNET<\/a> (4\/3, Katz) also report the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From ASEE First BELL April 3, 2009 BBC News (4\/3, Gill) reports that researchers at Aberystwyth University in Wales have developed “a robot that performs hundreds of repetitive experiments,” and “is the first machine to have independently ‘discovered new scientific … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robot-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5613,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/5613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}