Big Picture Science

The machines are coming! Meet the prototypes of your future robot buddies and discover how you may come to love a hunk of hardware. From telerobots that are your mechanical avatars … to automated systems for the disabled … and artificial hands that can diffuse bombs. Plus, the ethics of advanced robotics: should life-or-death decisions be automated? And, a biologist uses robo-fish to understand evolution. Guests: Illah Nourbakhsh – Professor of robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, author of Robot Futures. Check out his Robot Futures blog. Marco Mascorro – Vice President of Hardware, 9th Sense Robotics, Mountain View, California Curt Salisbury – Mechanical engineer, senior member, technical staff, Sandia National Laboratories Joe Karnicky – Retired engineer, Menlo Park, California. Videos of his gadgetry can be found at the bottom of this page. John Long – Professor of biology and cognitive science at Vassar College and the author of Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the His