A news release from the Indiana University School of Informatics describes the uses of androids in human behavioral research. Using androids like the Repliee Q1, researcher Karl MacDorman and his team can perform experiments that would be considered unethical if real humans were used. Not suprisingly, issues with the uncanny valley arise but, in some cases, are actually helpful in achieving the goals of the researchers. What better way to discover the behaviors we perceive as characteristic of humans than by spotting test subjects' reactions to slight deviations exhibited by androids? For more information, see MacDorman's recent paper, The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research (PDF format).