Suita, Japan, March 10, 2009--With a creepy-cute face only a mother could love, 4-foot-tall (130-centimeter-tall) CB2 (shown in a photo released April 4) was born in an Osaka University lab. The robot "child" sports 51 air-powered actuators and 5 motors as well as 197 tactile sensors under its silicone skin.

Professor Minoru Asada's team is trying to teach the android to think like a baby: evaluating the countless facial expressions of its "mother" and grouping them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness. And, the team says, it's working--CB2 is gradually adding to its repertoire of social skills.