In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, commissioning editor Jason Goodyer speaks to Dr Carl Strathearn, a research fellow at the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University.

He's currently conducting research on realistic humanoid robots, specifically on more realistically synchronising their speech and mouth movements.

He tells us about how to get robots out of the Uncanny Valley, why the way a robot looks is so important, and why Data from Star Trek is an inspiration for his work.

• Read an edited excerpt from this interview

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