A visit to the dentist is something that many children fear, with some youngsters thrashing around in the chair while the dentist tries to inspect their mouth. Now, Japanese scientists have developed an eerily-realistic robot child, which they hope will make it easier for dentists to manage encounters with nervous patients. The robot, called Pedia_Roid, can move its arms, legs, and eyes to mimic several human emotions, including anxiety, fear and resistance. However, dental students hoping to try the robot themselves may be saving for a while – in its current iteration, Pedia_Roid costs a whopping 25 million Japanese yen (£153,000). The robot has a total of 24 degrees of freedom, and can move its head, mouth, tongue, eyelids, eyes, pupils, arms, legs, chest and even pulse.

Human-robot hybrids could be in the pipeline as Japanese scientists have succeeded in merging muscle fibres with a robotic skeleton. Previous attempts at this have been short-lived and prone to failure. A new study took a different approach and grew the muscles from scratch, instead of taking a muscle that had grown inside an animal. This discovery could pave the way for superhuman cyborgs, but scientists say larger-scale applications are at least a decade away. Biorobotics is a developing area of science which aims to combine the best of the natural world with the best of the field of robotics.

In an annual survey of the most popular jobs among preschoolers and elementary schoolers, the "scientist and scholar" job category clinched the top spot among Japanese boys for the first time in 15 years, following the recent Nobel Prize awards to Japanese scientists, Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. has said. Among girls, "working at a food shop" was the most popular occupation for the 21st straight year, followed by "nurse" and "preschool teacher." Among those who wanted to work with food, working in a cake shop was the most popular choice, with one respondent saying she wants to "make sweets that even people suffering from illness can eat with joy." The survey, released Thursday, showed that "baseball player" was in second place for boys, topping "soccer player," which came in third for the first time in eight years. In the survey, boys who said they wanted to become a scientist or scholar cited reasons such as wanting to "completely cure cancer" or "make a robot to play with."

A snake-like robot that measures 26 feet (8 metres) and is covered in short brush-like hairs has been built by Japanese scientists to help during large-scale disasters. The bizarre machine can climb over walls and rubble and is designed to reach people trapped in hard-to-reach places after earthquakes and tsunamis. The innovative creation is the first snake-shaped robot in the world that can move with its camera-mounted front tip off the floor, which it does by firing a jet of air. A snake-like robot (pictured) that measures 26 feet (8 metres) and is covered in short brush-like hairs has been built to probe disaster zones by Japanese scientists. The robot was designed to assist and respond to crises around the world.

Nine new breeds of carrot including a'super orange' variety have been developed by Japanese scientists. One breed, called'Amelie', has been bred to have extra carotene - the pigment that makes carrots appear bright orange. And elsewhere in Japan, scientists are developing a lettuce farm exclusively run by robots. Nine new breeds of carrot including a'super orange' variety have been developed by Japanese scientists, including'Christine' (above), which grows in the shape of a perfect cylinder and the'Reimei' (below), which thrives in the cold One breed, called'Amelie', has been bred to have extra carotene, the pigment that makes carrots appear bright orange. The new vegetable varieties were developed using selective breeding.