As with any use of the term 'first' in science reporting, this is a little dubious (and the researchers involved are probably aware of the prior art in this domain).
Some previous work: https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/biomedical/bionics/rat-brain-robot-grows-up https://web.archive.org/web/20090530045152/http://radio.weblogs.com:80/0105910/2002/12/19.html https://dark-mountain.net/theoteknosis-part-i-of-pond-brains-and-humanity-2-0/ On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 1:26 PM Rand Strauss <[email protected]> wrote: > Note that they don’t reproduce. > And currently, there’s no "we" in the US… > -r > > On Jan 13, 2020, at 9:42 PM, Paola Di Maio <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks > I have seen the news this morning but had not had the time to process this > info > I find this shocking and potentially lethal, because we dont know how the > new > species will interact with natural species. Paid for by US taxpayers and > sponsored by Defense, is even more worrying. I d suggest you guys in the > US start working on bioethics legislation to keep a tab > at a minimum these things should not be released in the wild, and should > be strictly regulated, imho > PDM > > On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:41 PM Yosem Companys <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/13/scientists-use-stem-cells-from-frogs-to-build-first-living-robots >> >> Researchers in the US have created the first living machines by >> assembling cells from African clawed frogs into tiny robots that move >> around under their own steam. “These are entirely new lifeforms. They have >> never before existed on Earth,” said Michael Levin, the director of the >> Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “They >> are living, programmable organisms.” The robots, which are less than 1mm >> long, are designed by an “evolutionary algorithm” that runs on a >> supercomputer. The program starts by generating random 3D configurations of >> 500 to 1,000 skin and heart cells. Each design is then tested in a virtual >> environment, to see, for example, how far it moves when the heart cells are >> set beating. The best performers are used to spawn more designs, which >> themselves are then put through their paces. Because heart cells >> spontaneously contract and relax, they behave like miniature engines that >> drive the robots along until their energy reserves run out. The cells have >> enough fuel inside them for the robots to survive for a week to 10 days >> before keeling over. The scientists waited for the computer to churn out >> 100 generations before picking a handful of designs to build in the lab. >> They used tweezers and cauterising tools to sculpt early-stage skin and >> heart cells scraped from the embryos of African clawed frogs, Xenopus >> laevis. The source of the cells led the scientists to call their creations >> “xenobots”. Xenobots might be built with blood vessels, nervous systems >> and sensory cells, to form rudimentary eyes. By building them out of >> mammalian cells, they could live on dry land. When damaged, living robots >> can heal their wounds, and once their task is done they fall apart, just as >> natural organisms decay when they die. Their unique features mean that >> future versions of the robots might be deployed to clean up microplastic >> pollution in the oceans, locate and digest toxic materials, deliver drugs >> in the body, or remove plaque from artery walls. “The aim is to understand >> the software of life,” Levin said. “If you think about birth defects, >> cancer, age-related diseases, all of these things could be solved if we >> knew how to make biological structures, to have ultimate control over >> growth and form.” The research is funded by the US Defense Advanced >> Research Projects Agency’s lifelong learning machines programme, which aims >> to recreate biological learning processes in machines. >> -- >> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major >> commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you >> moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, >> change to digest mode, or change password by emailing >> [email protected]. > > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major > commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you > moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, > change to digest mode, or change password by emailing > [email protected]. > > > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major > commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you > moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, > change to digest mode, or change password by emailing > [email protected].
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