Loneliness is a common curse of the aged as well as the young. Just having a pet in the house changes ones perspective towards life. It's an incredible stress buster to watch a pet play with a piece of string or even play fetch. The drawbacks of one are the mess they create in the house. St. Louis-based researchers conducted a study on loneliness at three U.S. nursing homes. One group was given a flesh-and-blood dog named Sparky to play with, another received a Sony Aibo dog robot, and the third got no dog at all. Where the researchers reasonably expected that Sparky would have been far and away the most popular of the three scenarios among the homes' residents, the dog actually finished neck and neck with the AIBO when it came to alleviating loneliness.

"The most surprising thing is they worked almost equally well in terms of alleviating loneliness and causing residents to form attachments," Dr. William Banks, who worked on the study, told Reuters. He added, ""Loneliness is common in nursing homes. Robots may be very useful for people who cannot for whatever reason have access to a living dog."

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