The world's first living robots can now reproduce, according to US scientists.
Scientists at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University who conducted the new research say xenobots - which get their name from the stem cells of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) - do not reproduce the same way as seen in plants or animals.
"These are frog cells replicating in a way that is very different from how frogs do it. No animal or plant known to science replicates in this way," lead author on the new study Sam Kriegman said in a story on the Wyss Institute's website.
The scientists found that the computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny Petri dish, find single stem cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble “baby” xenobots inside their “mouth”.
Days later, the "babies" become xenobots that look and move just like their peers.
The new xenobots can then go out and replicate themselves using the same method.
Computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont, Joshua Bongard, who co-led the new research said that "with the right design, they will spontaneously self-replicate".
"Most people think of robots as made of metals and ceramics but it's not so much what a robot is made from but what it does, which is act on its own on behalf of people," said Bongard.
"In that way it's a robot but it's also clearly an organism made from genetically unmodified frog cell."
Read about the study here.
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