Researchers at the University of Reading in the UK want to take to controlling a robot with a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics,where 300,000 rat neurons are made to maintain connection with each other, writes Debopriya Nandy.

As they do so, the disembodied neurons send electrical signals to one another just as they do in a living creature. This is felt by the sparked voltages from the network of neurons connected at the base of the pot to 80 electrodes, which get displayed on a computer screen. The entire phenomena is related to the hope of getting an insight into the function of brains, which may in turn atempt to treat diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

The neural cortex from a rat foetus is removed surgically, and the neurons are made to disconnect from each other, then deposited in a thin layer into a nutrient-rich medium o electrodes. Here they reconnect. This is done to create brain. Consecutively, the brain is then connected to a wheeled robot. The rat neuron brain can send instructions to its robot body through the bank of electrodes.

Sounds positively ghastly and it's the egregious Kevin Warwick who's behind the gruesome plan. X