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[00:00.41] Japanese scientists have found a way to attach living skin tissue to robotic faces and make them "smile."

[00:09.44] This breakthrough could be helpful not only in robotics, but also in cosmetics and medicine.

[00:16.62] Researchers at the University of Tokyo started the process by growing human skin cells in the shape of a face.

[00:25.12] Then, they used attachments that are similar to the ligaments in a human to pull the tissue into a wide smile.

[00:34.15] Lead researcher Shoji Takeuchi is a professor at the University of Tokyo.

[00:40.26] He said the result is an important step towards building more life-like robots. Using the attachments, he said, “it became possible to manipulate living skin for the first time.”

[00:54.33] The study about the smiling robot appeared last month in Cell Reports Physical Science.

[01:01.51] It represents 10 years of research by Takeuchi and his lab on how to best combine biological and artificial machines.

[01:11.60] Living tissue is better for this application than metals and plastics, Takeuchi said.

[01:18.24] He noted that brains and muscles are more efficient in use of energy and the skin can repair itself.

[01:27.54] In the future, the researchers aim to add more elements to the lab-grown skin, including a circulatory system and nerves.

[01:36.83] That could lead to safer testing methods for cosmetics and drugs absorbed, or taken in, through the skin.

[01:45.07] It could also produce more realistic and functional coverings for robots.

[01:51.44] The remaining issue is how people react to machines that appear almost lifelike, but do not look exactly like humans.

[02:00.73] "There's still a bit of that creepiness to it," Takeuchi said about the robot.

[02:06.05] He added, "I think that making robots out of the same materials as humans and having them show the same expressions might be one key to overcoming the uncanny valley."

[02:20.40] The “uncanny valley” is an idea that relates to how humans react to robots or other machines that act like humans.

[02:28.10] “Uncanny” is an adjective that means “being beyond what is normal or expected.”

[02:35.00] Japanese robotics scientist Masahiro Mori published a work, Bukimi No Tani, or “Uncanny Valley” in 1970.

[02:45.90] It proposed how people would react to lifelike robots, or androids.

[02:51.20] Mori thought that at first, people would have positive feelings about robots that look a little bit like humans.

[02:58.65] But as robots got closer to being realistic human models, he believed those feelings would become more negative.

[03:07.40] Those negative feelings are the so-called low point, or “valley,” in a chart that represents the relationship between the human-like appearance of robots and humans’ feelings toward and acceptance of such robots.