Scientists who created xenobots, living robots made from frog cells, claim they are also capable of assembling “babies” — when they are shaped like Pac-Man. American scientists who created the first living robots, known as xenobots, discovered that they have the ability to reproduce, according to a study published in the specialized journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team from the universities of Vermont, Tufts and Harvard had already presented in 2020 the first xenobots, which are less than a millimeter in size and are made from the stem cells of a species of African frog, Xenopus laevis.
Scientists said that xenobots, made up of 3,000 clustered cells, reproduce spontaneously and in a completely new way. They also found that the Pac-Man form is best suited for breeding xenobots.
Pac-Man format
According to the scientists, a Pac-Man-shaped xenobot collects stem cells around it with its “mouth” in a Petri dish, and with them is able to assemble “babies”, which a few days later transform into new ones. xenobots. Scientists were initially experimenting with sphere-shaped xenobots, but this shape proved not to be the most suitable.
“They can have children, but then the process usually dies. In fact, it’s very difficult to keep the process going,” commented lead author San Kriegman of the University of Vermont.
Using a supercomputer and artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm was able to test billions of shapes, including triangles, squares, pyramids and starfish, until it found the one that allowed cells to be most effective at kinematic replication, based on motion, what the new research is about: the Pac-Man shape.
Kinematic replication is well known at the molecule level but has never been observed in cells or whole organisms, the researchers said.
living machines
“These are new living machines,” said robotics expert Joshua Bongard, co-author of the study. “They are neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It is a new class of artifact: a live, programmable organism.”
Bongard recalled that the definition of robots does not require that they be made of metal, but that they act on their own to help people. So this living organism made of frog cells that have not been genetically modified is also a robot.
He also guaranteed that xenobots are “completely contained in the laboratory, are easily extinguished and examined by experts in ethics”.
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