Not sure if you have seen this news report and also the paper in science, but
this might be interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/science/07robot.html?ref=technology

"In an article in Friday's issue of the journal Science, two Cornell scientists
describe a computer program that sifts raw and imperfect data to uncover
fundamental laws of nature. The achievement could mean that insights that once
emerged from the genius of scientists like Isaac Newton might now pop out of
computers like, perhaps, the Hal 9000 in "2001: A Space Odyssey."
.
.
In the same issue of Science, scientists in Britain describe building a robot
that can not only devise a hypothesis but can also run and analyze experiments
to test the hypothesis."

Zz.