The next step in human redundancy
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 9:00 amA team of scientists have built the first robots assembled entirely from living cells.
The "xenobots" are artificially built, but from living embryonic frog cells. Alive, yet not alive, they can perform simple tasks.
https://futurism.com/scientists-worlds-first-living-robots-stem-cells
The "xenobots" are artificially built, but from living embryonic frog cells. Alive, yet not alive, they can perform simple tasks.
https://futurism.com/scientists-worlds-first-living-robots-stem-cells
“These are novel living machines,” research co-lead Joshua Bongard, robotics expert at the University of Vermont, said in a statement. “They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism.”
The millimeter-length robots were designed by a supercomputer running an “evolutionary algorithm” that tested thousands of 3D designs for rudimentary life forms inside a simulation. The scientists then built a handful of the designs, which were able to propel themselves forward or fulfill a basic task inside the simulation using tweezers and cauterizing tools.