Adam, a US$1 million robot-computer amalgam about the size of a large pickup truck, carried out genetic experiments on yeast and reached groundbreaking conclusions without human help, according to a report in the journal Science. That is, the robo-scientist set a hypothesis, carried out experiments, studied the results, and modified its original hypothesis based on what it had found.

Adam’s flesh-and-blood counterparts have confirmed that the robot did indeed discover something new about yeast genetics.