First it was chess. Then it was Jeopardy. Now computers are at it again, but this time they are trying to automate the scientific process itself.

Researcher Alun Hubbard, of the Center for Glaciology at Aberystwyth University said he was rendered “speechless” when a glacier about twice the size of Manhattan he and his team have been tracking appeared close to breaking off.

Although the great tit bird is loud enough to be heard in noisy, city areas, for their country relations they might as well be speaking Greek.

A robot scientist acting without human help has made its first real, albeit modest, discoveries, say researchers at the University of Cambridge. Named Adam, the robot is the creation of researchers at Cambridge and the United Kingdom's Aberystwyth University, New Scientist reported Friday. Without human assistance, Adam formulated and tested 20 hypotheses about gene coding for 13 enzymes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as brewer's yeast, said Ross King, a biologist at Aberystwyth who leads the project. It's certainly a contribution to knowledge.

On Thursday, two teams of researcher announced that they have created machines capable of reasoning, creating theories, and discovering knowledge on their own.