Robot Nurses Will Assist Sick And Elderly - Magazine Wednesday January 12 2:31 PM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Robot nurses may soon be helping the sick and elderly by telling them when to take their pills and recording their temperature and pulse, New Scientist magazine said Wednesday. Engineers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pennsylvania have designed a new generation of robots to make life easier for the elderly and housebound and to inform their doctors of medical problems. "Flo the robot nurse will remind people when to take their medicines and regularly check their vital signs - e-mailing the data to a doctor," the weekly science magazine said. At the moment Flo is an early prototype for a Personal Service Robot which developers are designing to help people. "Flo is unique in the range of tools being developed to assist the elderly," according to Sebastian Thrun, an assistant professor of CMU's Center for Automated Learning and Discovery. "It's a personal assistant as opposed to an intelligent wheelchair or smart walking aid." The engineers are also working on ways to enable the robots to open jars and bottles for arthritis patients. http://www.ri.cmu.edu/projects/project_347.html