The IoT can link up many facets of research—from laboratory equipment to ideas—but scientists must be ready for the questions its implementation could raise.

Machine-learning algorithms can automate the analysis of cell images and data.

Automating Drosophila behavior screens gives researchers a break from tedious observation, and enables higher-throughput, more-quantitative experiments than ever before.

Neuroscientists are automating neural imaging and recording, allowing them to monitor increasingly large swaths of the brain in living, behaving animals.
 

New technology probes the functional unit of nervous transmission.

A tour of three systems for automating cell culture

Out with toothpicks and pipettors; in with automation.

A virtual lab—where all sorts of parameters are monitored and recorded—promises researchers a higher degree of reproducibility.