First Living Robots

This seems like big news, not getting much light.

A team of researchers have built what they claim to be the first living robots. The “xenobots,” they say, can move, pick up objects, and even heal themselves after being cut.

Heal themselves after being cut? - This is major.

The team is hoping the biological machines could one day be used to clean up microplastics in the ocean or even deliver drugs inside the human body, The Guardian reports.

To build the robots, the team used living cells from frog embryos and assembled them into primitive beings.

“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.

Link to Article



Seeing this in motion is oddly beautiful while terribly ominous feeling about it. I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter?

a reply to: BlackProject

Duplicate thread

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: BlackProject

Duplicate thread

Ah. I did make a search, did not find any result. Sure thing.

a reply to: BlackProject

This sounds like a Pandora's box to me.

Introducing something like this into the ecosystem could result in catastrophic unintended consequences.

Will they ever be able To appreciate and enjoy Ice Water ?

my grandmother used to say that the weather seemed to be a lot better be fore they started to send rockets up to space ,

i now see just what she meant , i am 72 years old and in my time i have seen technology advance so much it is unrecogniseable from what was around when i was a teen in the sixties . it is said that technology will double every ten years since one discovery will lead to another and another . technology has left me behind a long time ago i am not computor savvy nor can i understand a lot of functions on a telephone . when i was a child our first tv was in black and white and there was only one channel and that did not broadcast after 9 pm . if this living robot can help with medical operations and work in areas that was once impossible for man , then i have to say that this is a good thing .

as sf predicted we all get symbionts in oure body ..sooner ore later