In a nondescript hospital laboratory in Denbighshire, a quiet revolution is taking place. It involves nothing more glamorous than a digital scanning machine and a computer terminal. But the ramifications for medicine could be profound. Here, it could be argued, virtual consultants are being generated. READ MORE: Wales' worst ever shipwreck disaster was off Anglesey - and no one's ever heard of it These are "experts" who, every day, are getting better and better at their jobs.

James Hendler is the Director of the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications and the Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences at RPI. He also is acting director of the RPI-IBM Artificial Intelligence Research Collaboration and serves on the Board of the UK's charitable Web Science Trust. Hendler has authored over 400 books, technical papers and articles in the areas of Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, agent-based computing and high-performance processing. Hendler was the recipient of a 1995 Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, is a former member of the US Air Force Science Advisory Board, and is a Fellow of the AAAI, BCS, the IEEE, the AAAS and the ACM. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002.