A recent study from the University of Vermont, Tufts University and Harvard University, says Xenobots, also known as the world’s first living robots, have the capability to reproduce.
- Xenobots are made up of a collection of frog egg cells that can function as one tiny unit. They are engineered inside of a petri dish and can be programmed to move.
- In January 2020, researchers from US came a step closer to doing this, using stem cells from an African frog (Xenopus laevis) to create a sort of self-organized blob they called the xenobot, in honour of the frog progeny.
- Researchers recently found out that when they sprinkled more cells inside a petri dish, the existing xenobots, acting as bulldozers, push the cells together to create a separate xenobot.
What is Xenobot?
- A xenobot is a robot made up of skin cells of frog eggs instead of metals or plastics.
- The xenobot, which is one millimeter wide, is described as a “reconfigurable organism,” according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Benefits of living robot Xenobot
- Swarms of xenobots could be used to clean up plastic pollution, both in sea and on land
- If built with mammalian stem cells, xenobots could be, for example, organized to form lenses to restore vision or to clean up plaque that causes heart blocks, or brain damage
- programmed to attack and remove cancer cells and used to create structures that can repair and replace damaged organs.
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