According to a CNN article citing a scientific study, after constructing the world’s first living robots, US-based scientists have discovered that they can now reproduce in a way that is unlike any plant or animal. Scientists now call the Xenobots “the first-ever, self-replicating living robots”.
According to the study, scientists from the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering discovered that microscopic organisms could move, collaborate in groups, and self-heal.
Xenobots’ size is less than a millimeter. The stem cells of the African clawed frog are useful to create the xenobots. (scientifically known as Xenopus laevis). It is where the term comes from. The researchers anticipate that the discovery will have a positive impact on the medical field.
Michael Levin is a professor of biology and director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University. He told CNN, “Frogs have a way of reproducing that they normally use; but when you… liberate (the cells) from the rest of the embryo and you give them a chance to figure out how to be in a new environment, not only do they figure out a new way to move; but they also figure out apparently a new way to reproduce.”
“These things move around in the dish and make copies of themselves,” Josh Bongard says to The Guardian. He is from the University of Vermont and the lead author of the research.
“These are very small, biodegradable, and biocompatible machines, and they’re perfectly happy in freshwater,” he says. Also, adding that near-term applications could include collecting microplastics from waterways.
Xenobots: first ‘living’ robots can reproduce
Meanwhile, Bongard says to CNN that most people think robots consist of metal or ceramic; “But it’s not so much what a robot is made from but what it does, which is acting on its own on behalf of people.”
On Monday, the scientific journal PNAS also published the study of how the first ‘living’ robots can reproduce.