Humanoid Droids dance, dogs nuzzle, speak at Madrid robot museum

Humanoid robots dance at "The Robot Museum" in Madrid on November 28, 2013.

A white robotic beagle sits wagging its tail and nuzzling anyone who pets it, while six pint-sized robots, flashing blue, pump their fists as they dance to the pop hit "Gangnam Style".

They are the stars of a new museum launched in Madrid this month, showcasing what its owners say is one of the world's top collections of robot dogs and other pet automatons.

"As far as we know this is the biggest collection of robots in Europe, and in particular of Aibo robotic dogs," sold by Sony from 1999 to 2006, said the Robot Museum's manager Daniel Bayon, 39.

"They are a very important part of the museum. They are the most advanced robot dogs that have ever existed," he told reporters.

This pack of Aibos is the biggest in the world outside their native Japan, he added.

The museum houses some 140 exhibits dating from the 1980s to the present.

Among them is Nao, a walking, talking miniature humanoid developed by the French robotics company Aldebaran as an educational aid.

"I am a very special robot. I can simulate real-life behaviour," it said, in a high-pitched mechanical voice, during a recent demonstration.

"If you'll excuse me, I'll make myself a bit more comfortable," it added, sitting down on its bottom.

A child pets a robotic dog at "The Robot Museum" in Madrid on November 28, 2013.

Nearby stood a model of R2-D2, the classic bleeping droid first seen on movie screens in "Star Wars" in 1977.

Since opening nearly two weeks ago, tickets for guided visits to the small museum underneath the Juegetronica games store in central Madrid have sold out several times, Bayon said.

The owner of the collection, local technology enthusiast Pablo Medrano, said most of the models on display are no longer for sale in shops.

A picture taken on November 28, 2013 shows "NAO" a programmable humanoid robot developed by French robotics company Aldebaran Robotics at "The Robot Museum" in Madrid.

The museum is "perhaps the only dedicated robot museum in Europe outside of universities and training centres where we can see this technology of the future," Medrano, 39, told reporters.

"I want robots to be able to help us, just as household appliances and computers are helping us, which years ago was unthinkable. I hope that in a few years robots will meet our daily needs, particularly those of old people."

PreDICT TB: Europeans fight Pulmonary Tuberculosis (TB) with innovative technique

A European team of scientists is working on making new tuberculosis treatments a reality by developing better diagnostic imaging technology. 

The study is supported by the PREDICT-TB ('Model-based preclinical development of anti-tuberculosis drug combinations') project, which has clinched almost EUR 14.8 million from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

IMI is a public-private partnership between the EU and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

The PREDICT-TB team is working together with the European pharmaceutical industry; the project's coordinator is the United Kingdom-based GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies.

Results will help the many patients suffering from this airborne infectious disease: almost 9 million people worldwide currently have tuberculosis.

The researchers are developing a set of in vitro and in vivo trials that will give them the information they need to make key decisions about effective treatments. They also plan to optimise the clinical studies of novel combinations of drugs to fight this disease.

'These data will, first, offer us an early evaluation of the efficiency of the combinations of drugs used to treat tuberculosis, and second, they will allow us to optimise the clinical studies with patients,' said Juan José Vaquero from the Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering Department at the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) in Spain, one of the PREDICT-TB partners.

The UC3M group is researching and developing the new preclinical imaging technology, and is working on methods for processing and analysing images for the assessment and follow-up of illness in animal models.

'We are going to develop new in vivo molecular image devices and also work on the synthesis of very specific probes for the biomarkers of this illness that have been identified by other partners in the consortium,' Professor José Vaquero said.

'We are collaborating very closely with GlaxoSmithKline, whose laboratories are going to use our equipment, as well as with specialists from the Infectious Disease and Microbiology Service of Gregorio Marañón University General Hospital in Madrid, who have a great deal of experience working with both the biology and the clinical aspects of tuberculosis. This facilitates the transformation of our results into clinical applications.'

The objective of UC3M, in the short term, is to develop a tomographic X-ray technique that screens quickly yet inexpensively.

This technique will give researchers the opportunity to keep an eye on the evolution of the disease and to determine how effective the treatments are in animal models.

The team's long-term objective team is to perfect this technique and make it more sensitive and specific.

Positron emission tomography (PET) will be included, a nuclear medicine imaging technique that generates a three-dimensional image for pictures of functional processes in the body. Quantitative measurements can be taken with this more sensitive technique.

The group also plans to introduce changes in imaging technology to ensure that better resolution is obtained. 'This way, with just one examination, we will be able to visualise the complete lung of a rat or guinea pig, with enough detail to detect the disease at its earliest possible stage,' Professor José Vaquero explained.

The PREDICT-TB project is pioneering research in tuberculosis by investigating the use of quantitative molecular imaging.

Each year, tuberculosis affects 5 million patients in developing countries. A cure is possible for only 60 % of them, and one of the biggest challenges in fighting tuberculosis is to ensure that patients are treated for 6 to 24 months. Both support and financing for trials are limited. For more information, please visit:

Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI): http://www.imi.europa.eu/