Kenshiro Humanoid Robot Has Muscles And A Skeleton (VIDEO)

WATCH: Kenshiro Humanoid Robot Has Muscles And A Skeleton

The inexorable and, quite frankly, sinister march of robotic technology has passed another milestone this week.

So far this year tech boffins have taught robots to lie, run faster than Usain Bolt, recognise human emotions and learn the basics of speech.

Now they can also... jiggle their knees a bit.

While this doesn't sound too impressive, what researchers at the University of Tokyo have managed to achieve is actually pretty incredible.

The musculoskeletal robot, named Kenshiro, is 158cm and 50kg, roughly simliar to an average 12-year-old Japanese boy.

It contains 160 "muscles" each identically placed to those in us humans.

This allows the humanoid to make alarmingly realistic movements, including the ability to aggressively point (0:19) and do the splits with a total disregard for genitalia (0:59).

Fortunately, the researchers appear to have kept the arms and the legs separate as, we can only ponder, the moment they are united its bloodlust will be ignited and all of a sudden those Mayan Calendar Doomsayers won't seem so ridiculous.

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