Researchers have started testing a robot brain surgeon. Oh yeah? So who’s going to be the first lucky patient who ends up under the scalpel and oily cog then? I think I’ll take my robots Aibo style, thank you very much.

‘The neuroArm system consists of two robotic arms, each designed to mimic a surgeon’s arm in performance and size. The robotic arms operate independently and can be fitted with special surgical tools to perform such procedures as soft tissue manipulation, needle insertion, blunt dissection, suturing, cauterizing and cutting…promises to eliminate the natural tremor of the hand, and to scale down a surgeon’s hand motions to allow greater precision.’