Trials to show that brain training in the form of meditation can cause an overwhelming change in levels of happiness. Happiness is a “skill” to be learned according to Matthieu Ricard, a frenchman who studies Buddism and is the interepreter for the Dalai Lama.

“MRI scans showed that [Ricard] and other long-term meditators - who had completed more than 10,000 hours each - experienced a huge level of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with happiness. The right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts, is suppressed.”

Source: The Independent

A researcher is developing ways to make robots more humanlike through intelligent motion programming. The goal is to have robots function less like machines, and enable them to mimick the graceful movement that allows humans do things easily. At present, most of the work is done through computer simulations.

Source: The Merced-Sun

Sci- Fi - A British government-commissioned report discusses the status of robots in the year 2056.  One scientist Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology - commented “If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should.”

Source: Financial Times