Building the First Living Robots (VIDEO)
Caption
A team of scientists at the University of Vermont and Tufts University designed living robots on a UVM supercomputer. Then, at Tufts, they re-purposed living frog cells -- and assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These tiny 'xenobots' can move on their own, circle a target and heal themselves after being cut. These novel living machines are neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. They're a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism. They could, one day, be used for tasks as varied as searching out radioactive contamination, gathering microplastic in the oceans, or traveling in human arteries to scrape out plaque.
Credit
Courtesy Sam Kriegman, Josh Bongard, UVM
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