“What?”, you ask. But it’s true! Scientists have transplanted a worm’s (Caenorhabditis elegans) nervous system into the body of a Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot.
“Why?”, you ask again. OpenWorm, an organization that wants to create the first virtual organism in a computer, hopes to further understand the human brain. Understanding a simple worm’s brain is just the first step in the enormous ladder that is understanding the human brain.
The scientists reverse-engineered the worm’s neural networks using software and sensors. Apparently, the robot does act a lot like the worm: stimulation of the nose made it stop moving, and touching another sensor made it move forward.
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