Scientists are creating new ‘living robots’ that have memory and are able to assemble

Scientists have created new living robots that have memory and are able to assemble themselves.

The “xenobots” are an updated version of the biological machines that were first unveiled last year.

These living robots were made from frog cells by scientists at Tufts University and the University of Vermont. The tiny machines could perform a multitude of tasks and actions, including moving and other things and demonstrating collective behavior as part of a swarm of such robots.

The new version includes a wide range of upgrades. They are able to assemble into a body from a multitude of individual cells, do not need muscle cells to move, and have a memory that can be used to record what is happening to them.

They are also faster and more efficient than the first version and have a longer lifespan. They can still work together as a collective and heal each other.

The researchers say they could be further enhanced to add a host of other abilities that could be used to improve the environment or improve health care.

But they could also help shed light on how cells – such as those that make up a human – come together to form a whole that functions as a system.

It could help us understand how single-celled organisms evolved into the complex organisms that surround us – and include us. The processes that help train xenobots could tell us how we too were trained and acquired abilities such as the ability to process information and understand things, the researchers say.

Work on the new xenobots is described in an article published today in the journal Scientific robotics.

The robots were built a little differently from the original versions, the researchers say. They took stem cells from frog embryos and allowed them to begin to assemble, as they would when the frog grows up, forming tiny balls with “eyelashes”, or small strands resembling hair that can be controlled by the body.

In a frog – or a human – these cilia are thought to be in places like the lungs, where they help expel harmful material. But the researchers were able to use them for an entirely different purpose, essentially reprogramming the xenobot so that the eyelashes were used like tiny legs, to move around.

“We are witnessing the remarkable plasticity of cell collectives, which are building a new rudimentary ‘body’ that is quite distinct from their defect – in this case, a frog – despite having a completely normal genome,” said Michael Levin, eminent professor of biology. and director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, and corresponding author of the study.

“In a frog embryo, cells work together to create a tadpole. Here, taken out of that context, we see that cells can reuse their genetically encoded material, like cilia, for new functions like locomotion. It is amazing that cells can spontaneously assume new roles and create new bodily plans and behaviors without long periods of evolutionary selection for these characteristics.

Researchers say the process is no different from the normal way to create a robot – but simply uses biological tissue to do it.

“In a way, Xenobots are built like a traditional robot. We just use cells and tissues rather than artificial components to build shape and create predictable behavior. Said lead scientist Doug Blackiston, who co-authored the study with research technician Emma Lederer.

“On the biology side, this approach helps us understand how cells communicate when they interact with each other during development, and how we might better control those interactions.”

At the same time, scientists at the University of Vermont were running computer simulations of xenobots working both together and separately to find out how their shapes altered their behaviors. These could then be used to select a specific behavior, such as collecting pieces of debris in a set of particles.

“We know the job, but it’s not at all obvious – to people – what a successful design should look like. This is where the supercomputer comes in and scans space for all possible Xenobot swarms to find the swarm that does the job best, ”said Josh Bongard, who led the team of computer scientists and researchers. robotics experts.

“We want Xenobots to do a useful job. Right now we give them simple tasks, but at the end of the day we’re aiming for a new kind of living tool that could, for example, clean up microplastics in the ocean or contaminants in the soil.