Robo-don's debut

A robot scientist that formulates theories, devises experiments and interprets results has been built by British academics. Ross King, professor of computer science at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Stephen Oliver, professor of biological sciences at the University of Manchester, combined "production-line" lab techniques with artificial intelligence to create the system. A report on the robot scientist's efforts to work out the function of specific yeast genes is carried in this week's Nature .