A team of researchers from the University of Vermont and Tufts University in the US have discovered a new way of biological reproduction and used this discovery to create the first-ever self-breeding living robot, Xenobots3.0, the Global Times reported. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In fact, back in January of last year, Titanium Media App reported that the team assembled a whole new life form from skin and heart cells from early xenopus embryos, creating the world's first living robots, "Xenobots," that can repair themselves and decompose naturally. In March, the team upgraded Xenobots to 2.0, which uses hair-like cilia "legs" to propel themselves, move quickly across surfaces and record information. (See the previous article of Ti Media App: "The world's first living robot born: 100% Frog gene, self-healing when damaged")
Now, after two upgrades in the past two years, Xenobots 3.0 goes one step further and enables robots to reproduce themselves.
Study co-author MichaelLevin, director of the center for regenerative and developmental biology at tufts university, said in an interview with titanium media App in the early hours of December 2, Beijing time.
The collection of multicellular systems can do a lot of things, like actually delivering drugs with robots.
"This study is already a striking example of 'biological plasticity' that could lead to more direct and personalized drug treatments for trauma, birth defects, cancer, aging, and more." Michael Levine says.
The team also revealed in an interview that Xenobots can survive for 10 to 14 days without any external food stores because they get their energy from eggs. Once they reach 14 days, the cells break down and can't reproduce. Moreover, Xenobots can only reproduce themselves for 1-2 generations.
Levine points out that in the course of their research, they found that the self-reproduction of Xenobots is somewhat transient, with self-reproduction lasting only one or two generations, not indefinitely. And instead of billions of self-replicating shapes, they end up being primordial spheres, circles with "mouths".
He stressed that this combination of molecular biology and artificial intelligence is expected to be used for many human and environmental tasks, such as collecting microplastics in the ocean, inspecting roots and regenerative medicine.
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