Study shows robots are better at slicing humans open than humans are

Human surgeons are some of the most skilled, precise individuals on the planet, but no amount of training and experience can make them better at slicing human flesh than robots already are. A new study aimed at comparing the steady hand of a human surgeon against the cold precision of the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) revealed just how much better a bot really is, and what that means for patients going under its knife. The research pitted the surgical bot, which is still in active development, against a human surgeons operating on a human analog -- in this particular case, it was pig tissue including muscle, fat, and of course skin. The cuts made by both the human doctors and the STAR were judged based on how precise their cuts were as well as how much damage was done to the flesh surrounding the incision. The STAR system not only produced more precise cuts in terms of length, but they were also closer to the "perfect" line and the incision caused less damage to the flesh.