Oh hey! There’s roughly a million sci-fi movies, television shows, novels, RPGs, poetry slams and more about the inevitable and forthcoming robotic uprising of [Year Really Soon.] Despite this, we continue to give robots the tools they need to eventually gain sentience, band together, and overthrow us and wear our faces as silly flesh banners.

Today’s example: researches want to teach robots how to build their own language.

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Yeah son, there above is a fucking human face. Sort of.

The motherfuckers at the BBC have crushed it with their scientific techowankery this time. Using high-resolution scans, they’ve created this time-lapse video of a human embryo’s face growing. Watch in awe and horror as it reveals our fucking amphibian past. Evolution is amazing.

Hit the jump for the video.

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Listen man, I know this is a fucking fluffy pseudoscientific article. I know it is. But let me have this. As I march towards oblivion with the rest of you, I want to believe anything that suggests that science will find a way to stem the mindrot sometime soon, if not the bodyrot.

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The days of the mechs are upon us! I only hope I can wield one within the framework of some sort of alien invasion! Neuroscientists have created the first brain-controlled exoskeleton. Welcome to the future, baby! Welcome to the fucking future.

io9:

It’s a science fiction dream, and now is close to reality. Scientists at the University of Chicago were experimenting with brain-computer interfaces in monkeys, teaching them to control computer cursors via electrodes implanted in their brains. We’ve known for a while that thinking about moving activates the same areas of the brain as moving itself does – so monkeys (and humans) learn to do this by imagining that they’re moving left, right, up or down. But the researchers discovered that the monkeys learned much faster if their arms were moved at the same time the cursor did – basically, they got feedback via movement in their bodies as well as from looking at the monitor.

Society for Neuroscience:

The authors worked with two adult rhesus macaques to assess a system that incorporates a sense of movement. Each monkey was first trained to control a cursor using brain signals only; electrodes collected and processed data from the monkeys’ motor cortex cells and transmitted those commands to the computer. Basic science research has shown that simply thinking about a motion activates brain cells in the same way that making the movement does, so each monkey needed to only think about moving a cursor to do it.

Oh god! For the longest time I was worried about the robot and/or zombie uprising. But now we’re outfitting primates with exoskeletons! Jesus Christ! When will we fucking learn? The great simian uprising of 2012 may in fact be upon us. But if it ain’t, I want me some fucking exoskeleton goodness. Something nice and synthetic and disinclined to rot like the meat sac I’m currently wearing.

Hey Ma! Yeah you, Ma! Remember when you said that video games weren’t real? And that I shouldn’t cry over Aeris dying because she was fake? And that I was a disappointment and that you were glad you had a second child to correct your mistake?! Well guess what, video games are real! And Bowser died 3,000 years ago after totally kicking all shitloads of ass I bet.

Kotaku:

This extinct species of turtle was five-feet wide and weighed half a ton. It also looks a lot like a certain Nintendo villain.

The dog nose, the horns, the beaked mouth, the (relatively) enormous size…it’s official name is Meiolania platyceps, but it may as well have been called Meiolania Bowserus, so uncanny is the resemblance to Mario’s chief antagonist.

I know, Bowser and his Koopas are supposed to look like turtles, but this one goes a little further than looking like a turtle. I think it’s the horns. And especially the eyes. Those dark, angled, evil eyes

Well then, Mom! Take that shit. If you want to apologize, I’ll be sitting down here in my basement dungeon, penning epistles to Princess Peach about how fucking hot her ass is in that pink tuft of a dress. Slide the apology under the chain-links.

Fuck the Kinect! This shit is the real deal here! You don’t need no karate kicks here! Waterloo Labs, through some sort of scientific witchcraft have designed a way for people to play Super Mario Bros. using only their eyes. Yeah, it involves a shitload of electrodes and other creepy shit, but still! Super Mario Bros.! With your eyes! Believe!

Hit the jump to check out the video.

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