The realism of robotic facial features is growing at an exponential pace.  Huff Post Science has reported on a very “interesting” way to control an android’s face.

Researchers at the University of the West of England in Bristol programmed the robotic face, in the video below, to respond to electrical signals produced by slime mold, which is a fungus- like organism that resembles spongy, yellow blobs.

How Does This Work?

When the mold moves toward food, the bot registers a positive expression and when it recoils from light, the robotic face looks downcast.

The university’s Dr. Ella Gale, a research associate in unconventional computing, placed the mold in a small dish on a bed of 64 electrodes to create the robot-mold interface. The electrodes pick up tiny signals from the mold and route them to the robot to produce facial expressions.

 Watch the video below to get a better feel of how mold controls the Robotic “mind”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Courtesy of StockVault

Most of us know that color can influence our mood and emotions, but how much influence do they really have?

Dr. Zena O’Connor is continuing to explore the effect color can have on our mood and emotions.  She’s a designer and research associate with the University of Sydney.

Her focus is on color theory, “While there are no hard-wired linkages between environmental colors and particular judgmental or emotional states, popular culture suggests color prompts a range of different human responses: psychological, biological, and behavioral.“

Past research has shown that our mood, appetites, brain function and even sex drive are affected by different colors.

BLUE

–Is the world’s most popular color.  Dr Martin Williams says, “From ancient times, blue has been the color of royalty, formality, seriousness and authority, so conservative Kate uses this color to establish these values,” he says.

RED

-Has been noted to be an aphrodisiac and a symbol for lust.

GREEN

-Is the least-offensive color to look at. As a result, it has a calming, restorative effect, which is why television studios have “green rooms” to calm guests’ nerves before they appear.

ORANGE

-Increases productivity and encourages communication. Combining the effects of red and yellow, orange also has a positive influence on emotional states, and is the ideal color to wear for exams as it stimulates mental abilities.

 For the whole color list, visit Stuff.co Life & Style and read the entire article.

Humans aren’t the only ones that convey emotion through nonverbal behavior: animals do too.

New research by animal behavioral experts has found canine emotions are betrayed by specific facial movements, such as raising their eyebrows or cocking their ears.

Using high-speed cameras, researchers in Japan found when dogs were reunited with their owners they tended to move their eyebrows upwards around half a second after seeing them.

The study entitled “Dogs show left facial lateralization upon reunion with their owners” was published in the journal Behavioural Processes.